


Contact

by Belle_Evans



Series: Contact [1]
Category: The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Movie, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:30:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle_Evans/pseuds/Belle_Evans
Summary: Brian gets a call.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in this fandom eons ago (9/2005 to be exact) originally posted on LJ. I was still trying to figure out how LJ worked which you can tell in how I posted it there - couldn't link the chapters to each other, one section of the story was completed in the comment section, the multiple endings were kind of hard to designate - all kinds of silliness which posting here will hopefully make for a better reading experience.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian gets a phone call.

 

 

 

Two months after everything fell apart, his phone rang. “Hello”. Silence was the only response. Brian O’Conner figured it for a wrong number or a prank and hung up. There were a few more calls, various times of day, various days. It took him longer than it should have taken anyone calling themself Detective to put two and two together.

Despite the mess he’d made, O’Conner still found himself bumped up the chain. Briefly it flickered that maybe Internal Affairs was working a kind of sting on him. But his profile was so non-existent, currently he was doing scut surveillance work on the house of a suspected dealer in Hollywood, that he couldn’t see the promotion for anything other than what it most likely was. An attempt to save face on an operation gone mostly bad. The highjackings had stopped, there was at least one person in custody and the leader of a gang that shot up a neighborhood in broad daylight had been taken out. Promoting the lead officer, despite the fact the primary suspect hadn’t been apprehended let the smoke obscure the fire.

From a house one block over from the suspect’s, he and his partner monitored the feed from fibre optic cameras and directional mics mounted on property near the front and the back of the dealer’s house. When they weren’t logging comings and goings, Brian and his partner were listening to the wiretap. Fourteen long days of nothing much happening.

And suddenly, one day between his partner’s running editorial on a wiretapped argument between the suspect and his wife, two and two finally became the four it should always have been.

The next time O’Conner answered his phone and there was no response, instead of hanging up, he kept talking .

“I’m sorry,” he husked out and waited. There was no breathing, no background noise. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he continued. And then waited again. He’d been waiting to say those words since he woke up in the hospital ten weeks ago.

His colleagues had found him laying unconscious in the street, next to the totaled Charger. The keys, the Supra both already long gone. After his release from hospital, O’Conner told himself that the man he gave his keys to understood the sacrifice. And had in turn contributed the black eyes, bruised ribs and head injury to help sell the drama. But alone, in the small hours of the morning, or on the wrong side of a couple three Coronas, he couldn’t keep the truth from blazing up in his conscious mind.

Had there been a larger window of opportunity, Brian O’Conner understood he would most likely have died that day. Or been badly maimed. The sustained injuries were simply all the beat down the man he betrayed could get in before the hammer of the LAPD came down. Johnny Tran had gotten his ass kicked for simply hurling the narc accusation. Could the actual narc truly have expected to get off any easier?

“ I’m a....detective now.” His hands white knuckled the receiver waiting for the hangup . When it didn’t come, “I’m on a surveillance detail. But I’m usually home around now.” He finished quietly. After so much silence the click and resulting dial tone from the other end was startingly loud. For a long time, Brian sat on his couch absently clutching the receiver and staring at the wall.

The next day the phone rang at the same time. Two weeks later a blue water and white sand beach postcard appeared in Brian’s mailbox. There was no return address, the postmark was smudged and the name of the beach had been deliberately obliterated by what looked like permanent marker. The Detective stared at it a long time before sticking it on the mirror in his bedroom.

Even though it had taken him longer than it should have in the beginning to put the twos together, it occurred to him pretty quickly that the calls might have been a setup. That he really might be the target of an investigation.

The postcard could have been planted to sell the operation to him. And though he understood he might be putting himself in a deeper hole, the Detective played the hunch.

In the days following the first one sided conversation, the focus of O’Conner’s world narrowed to five inches of ringing plastic. Occasionally his partner invited him out for a drink and he always politely declined. He had to get home.

Another fourteen days, not once did anyone on the other end of the receiver speak and not once did Brian miss a call.

******************************

RING. The phone taunted Brian as he tried to get the key into his front door for the second time. And for the second time the key slipped out of his unsteady hand.

“SON OF A BITCH,” he yelled as he bent over to snatch the keys off the ground. Despite the tremor, he finally managed to get the key in the hole. Sprinting to the phone, he snatched the receiver out of its cradle. “Don’t hang up, don’t hang up. I’m here. I’m here.” And in the absence of the click- dial tone combo, Brian slumped onto his couch.

“Give me a minute,” he whispered into the receiver.  
  
Opening his mouth a couple of times to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, the day behind him kept crowding in. This time the screw up wasn’t on his shoulders, but it didn’t lessen its crushing weight.

******************************

He and his partner had watched impassively as the suspect’s estranged wife, with their child on her hip, entered the house. Nothing out of the ordinary flagged for them. The wife wasn’t a player. They made an entry in the log and rolled their eyes at each other.

POP. POP. Less than ten minutes later, the mics picked up two gunshots in quick succession. Stunned, Brian’s partner called it in while, Brian stared at the feed on the monitor see if the surveillance would have to be broken.

 

The first officer on the scene was shot by the wife as she came out of the house now clutching the child to her chest. Scrambling for cover, the fallen officer’s partner returned fire.

When it was over, there were four bodies. All on the wife’s gun. One person’s brutal murder suicide is another’s exigent circumstances. The surveillance team was ordered to the crime scene to preserve the operation’s standing in the face of the Homicide investigation.

Now that the house was an active crime scene, they had cause in lieu of a warrant to search of the dealer’s home. Standing on the front porch of the house as the other investigative activity swirled around him, Brian was unable to tear his eyes away from those of the wife staring blindly. He could feel his mind trying to shut down, trying to deny the smaller covered body. Trying not to take in that he was in the middle of the destruction of another family.

If only he’d been paying closer attention when the wife came to the house, if only...  
“O’Conner,” Brian’s partner yelled from inside the house. Tearing his eyes away from the perp, he squared his shoulders, stepped carefully around the body and went to do his job.

******************************

“I...”, Brian tried again as he clutched the receiver that much tighter, but still couldn’t get the words to come. He’d seen bad domestics before when he was a patrol officer, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on what went down at the target’s house. A part of him observed dispassionately that he was pretty much coming apart at the seams. And he needed -

“Dom, please talk to me.” The click-dial tone combo on the other end was as immediate as it was deafening.

 


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom's side.

Dominic Toretto pressed his forehead against the black plastic of the phone. He was appreciative beyond words at the moment for the privacy the hotel’s old school phone booths provided. With the solid wood door closed and the smoked glass, he was nearly completely obscured from the lobby traffic. 

He hadn’t intended to hang-up exactly, but...

 

The first time the Cop said more to him than ‘hello’ he’d almost dropped the receiver. It bobbled in his hands for a few seconds before he was able to tighten the grip. At the end he wasn’t sure which had startled him more the words that followed the ‘hello’ or the obvious invitation to call again. It never occurred to Dom to be surprised that the Cop knew who it was on the other end of the line.

********************

It had been sweet beyond measure when Dom’s fist connected with the Cop’s jaw. Their connection of only moments before, as they cleared the train tracks together, lost in the reality of the Charger’s crumpled body, the approaching sirens and the daunting truth that Dom’s life was forever badly changed. Again. As the battered racer stared at the unconscious man at his feet, something akin to satisfaction had flared in his chest. He gave you his keys, he gave you his keys, he gave you his keys, echoed so very faintly in a corner of his mind. So faintly that he was able to ignore it completely as he lifted his foot and kicked the lying, betraying asshole in the ribs. The proximity of the sirens finally cut through in a way the echo hadn’t. Dom limped to the Supra as quickly as he could and was gone.

 

Making a vow not to go back to lockup was one thing, it was another to actually take steps to prevent it. Off the books, Dom had rented garage space in Silverlake from an elderly woman who needed the extra cash. From the outside, the two car garage wasn’t anything to look at, but with an off alley entrance it provided a certain amount of cover. The garage lent seconds when every second counted. Even as he’d taken the offered keys, Dom knew that the Supra was a very temporary solution. Ten second car or not, it’s paint bellowed "Check me out." If he was going to make it, he needed to be in something decidedly less high profile. 

 

The Silverlake garage wasn’t tricked out, but it served its purpose. The last car anyone would peg as Dom Toretto’s, a ‘90 beige Buick, registered to an alias, sat in one of the spaces. Auto-piloted by the adrenaline and anger still coursing through his veins, Dom slammed out of the Supra, covered it up and scrambled to the floor safe in a dark corner of the garage space. The safe snicked open as soon as all the tumblers fell into place. Inside, there were three business size envelopes and a set of car keys. Dom grabbed everything. Once in the Buick, he retrieved sunglasses and a Dodger baseball cap from the glove compartment. With his makeshift disguise in place, the wanted man eased out of the garage. 

 

Halfway to San Diego as the adrenaline anger cocktail lost its potency, the damage to his body and in his hand made itself more than known.  
Trying to flex the hand he was driving with, Dom gasped as pain blazed in his busted knuckles. And that in turn encouraged the throbbing in his shoulder to rejoin the party. The image of the blond curled in the fetal position on the ground flashed in his mind’s eye. The pain and and the image of the Cop on the ground put the situation in a context that Dom could not ignore. That moment had gotten away from him the same way it had with Linder. The Cop had given him the keys and he’d been grateful. He remembered feeling that, for about a half a second, but with the wreckage of his father’s car behind him other uglier things clawed their way to the surface. 

 

He had fallen for the oldest, most effective, freedom stealing con in the world. The self-con. He was in control of the situation. He could get out anytime. He could stop before it was too late. All lies that he told himself, because he hadn’t done any of that. He hadn’t gotten out before the drivers armed themselves. He hadn’t gotten out before the FBI took an active interest. He hadn’t gotten out before losing control and assaulting a cop. His hand shook on the steering wheel and he glanced at the envelopes on the passenger seat.

 

Three. Two would never be used. Jesse dead. Vince in custody. He took a little comfort in the two envelopes that had been missing from the safe. Letty and Leon. There should have been enough of a head start for them to be more than half way to safety. They’d probably been a little surprised at the instructions, but Dom was certain that if they could follow them they had. It would still be several hours before he’d know for sure.

********************

Sixty days. One thousand four hundred and forty four hours in exile. Dom sat on white sand staring at blue water. There was a reason, he thought, not for the first time, that movies always ended with the outlaw riding off into the sunset or sitting on the beach sipping an umbrella drink. There was a reason he thought that they didn’t show you the day after that or the day after that or.... The days when the realization came that getting away could be worse than getting caught. In prison he could count the days and know that each one behind him was another day closer to home. But now counting the days, counting the hours meant nothing. Just another day away from his real life. Another second, minute, hour, day of Letty trying to mask her anger and disappointment when she looked at him. Of Leon spending more time with the pretty tourists, who passed through town and avoiding the tension in the house.

 

Mexico. Mexico would have been a great place to retire after a successful last job. Cruise down south, sit on one of her beaches, sip a margarita. But the last job had been a disaster. Though he’d fallen for his own con, Dom hadn’t let the idea of Mexico distract him the way it had other members of the team. He hadn’t really believed that things would fall apart, but instinctually he’d planned as though they might. That was the first source of strain between him and Letty. Leon had taken the place they landed in his stride, but Letty had been something else entirely. In the beginning, they were both subdued by their injuries and grief, but as Letty recuperated, her anger took the pole position. 

 

"What the hell happened to TJ, Rosarita, Cabo? What happened to fuckin’ Mexico, Dom." Her brown eyes flashed at him as her mouth turned downward into an ugly frown.  
"There are people on our ass. Where do think they would look first?" That had quieted her down a little, but it hadn’t stopped the looks. They didn’t have any relationship distractions here either. Neither of them could hop in a car and take off until the edge was less jagged. There was no place to time out buffing, tweaking or tuning. Dom hadn’t wanted anything around that would tag them as other than regular tourists. The house barely had a garage.

 

The days following the Cop’s invitation, brought increasingly contemptous looks from Letty as the the pattern became obvious. He left the house around the same time each day without ever inviting Letty or Leon along. Dom could offer no clear explanation of why he did it. Why it had become necessary to hear the Cop talk about his day, or bitch about the neighbor blaring Armenian rap music, or listen as he read out loud the specs on the new Saleen S7. Why he’d stopped at the hotel gift shop and bought a postcard. Why it was so important. 

 

There had still been anger, but the apology had done something to mute it. It didn’t blaze up anymore the way it had the first couple of times Dom had called pre-apology. Those times he had been so on the verge of screaming out his anger and frustration he’d simply hung up as soon as he heard the ‘hello’. Those times he’d definitely meant to hang up.

********************

Finally, Dom pushed himself out of the phone booth. When the Cop talked to him, Toretto played a little game with himself. Who would break first? The Cop managed not to address him by name in any of their other ‘talks’ and Dom managed never to say a word although he was tempted more than once. Maybe he should feel a little bit of triumph. He’d won. The Cop broke first. But the Cop hadn’t simply been the first to break the rules of game he didn’t know anything about, he’d actually sounded broken. And as he crossed the lobby, Toretto thought that maybe he should feel a little bit of triumph at that too. Maybe he’d gotten some of his own back. But the raw pain in the voice on the other end of the line had gotten to him more than a little, scared him more than a little. And now that Dominic Toretto was mostly out of the self-conning business, he couldn’t deny that there had been an impulse to offer some sort of comfort to.... For the first time in months the name came to him ahead of the usual derogatory litany. Brian.

‘You’re back early. I meant to be gone already. Your puta kick your ass to the curb where it belongs?"  
It took Dom a minute to fully comprehend what was happening in his bedroom. Letty was throwing clothes into a duffle bag on the bed. Dom watched as if from some place far away while his girlfriend whipped around like a mini hurricane. He knew that he should say something, should make some sort of effort, but "Dom, please talk to me," echoed in his head preventing him from concentrating fully on storm Letty. 

"You got nothing to say to me? He could only blink back at her while he tried to quiet Brian’s voice in his head.

"You are a son of a bitch Dominic Toretto. A first class son of a bitch. You think I don’t know about the hotel. You think I don’t know where you go every afternoon. . What the fuck? You expect me sit around in the ass end of nowhere while you play me?"

He loved Letty, had loved her for a long time, but he couldn’t seem to find his voice, couldn’t seem to find the fight. Still saying nothing, he watched as she picked up the last few things, her hairbrush, a twisty thing for her hair and finally her sunglasses. Ignoring Dom completely now, she muttered angrily under her breath as she zipped up the duffle.

The finality of that shook him out of his fugue a little. But even as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet, he knew it was the wrong thing to do. "Do you need some cash?"  
"Go to hell." Grabbing up the bag, his apparently now ex-girlfriend pushed her way past him and out of the bedroom. 

Later as he sat on the edge of the pool, staring at the circles his feet made in the water, the exiled racer thought of many things he could have said. Still none of them the right things.  
He should have warned her to be careful. Reminded her that people were still looking for them. Warned her not to go north. Let her know that she could always come back. Not once did he think that he should have told her about his calls to Brian. ‘Dom, please talk to me.’

 

"Hey Dom," Startled, Dom nearly knocked his untouched longneck into the pool. Looking up, he found Leon raising a beer in a half salute to him from the other side of the pool.

"Hey, man."

"Sorry, I thought you heard me come out." Dom glanced toward the open patio door. 

"No."

"Sorry," Leon smiled sadly. "You okay?"

Dom lifted his drink to his mouth. "Yeah, yeah."

"You need anything?"

"No, I’m good man."

"Okay," Leon lowered himself to sit on the opposite side of the pool and slipped his feet in. He moved his feet to mimic Dom’s. Leon’s eyes flicked to his mentor then down into the water.

"Um, Tessa’s leaving for the Peninsula in a couple of days," Leon said into his chest.

This week’s flavor, Australian, Dom thought. "It’s okay," he said quietly. 

"Prolly only be a week. She is so smokin’ hot man. I mean you’ve seen her. And she wants me to come with her an -"

"It’s cool Leon. I get it. I get it. Watch your back man."

"I know we still gotta play it close. I’ll keep my head down."

"I know you will."

Both men took slugs from their bottles.

"Dom, this other girl you’re seeing -" Dom’s mouthful of beer ended up in the pool. 

"There’s no girl, trust me bro it’s nothing like that."

"Okay, okay then. Letty was really mad. I don’t think she’s coming back."

Dom flicked troubled eyes to Leon’s and then over his head to the darkening sky. "No, probably not." And just like that the rest of his team, his family was gone. 

Three days after he let his girlfriend walk out on him, Dom called Brian. The phone rang a long time before he hung up and dialed again. After at least ten attempts, he had no choice but to accept the obvious.

He hung up and dialed the phone again. Mia picked up on the first ring. 

"Hel -"

He cut her off. "It’s me. I need you to do me a favor."


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian gets a little closer to Dom.

Brian opened his eyelids to slits, letting in just a sliver of light. The throb behind his eyes prevented him from opening them completely. I must be dead or dying, he thought.  
He could hear voices speaking Spanish softly somewhere near his feet. One of them, familiar. 

 

"So, guess you really aren’t going to die. Shit." Mia. One of the voices belonged to Mia. And that couldn’t be right because Mia hated him. Of course he thought, if he was dying then she certainly would want to be present. 

Swallowing, with some difficulty O’Conner discovered that his throat was killing him and his mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died. He attempted to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. 

"For God’s sake open your eyes so that I can get out of here. I have better things to do than make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit." 

The loathing in Mia’s voice just as plain as it was two months ago when she screamed her refusal of his help as she chased him off of her porch.

It took all of his will and a couple of attempts, but O’Conner managed to force his eyelids open. The light was blinding. As his eyes tried to adjust, he felt someone move up beside him. Then there were two quick, firm touches to his eyelids as they were parted further and a little pen light was shined into his eyes. The other voice, another woman said softly. 

"You’ll want to change that bandage at least twice a day." 

And then the tug on his eyelids was gone and all he could see were black spots. Bandage? O’Conner lifted his hand slowly to find a medium patch of gauze on his left temple. 

"Great, We’re out of here, " 

Mia growled. Brian tried once more to speak his question, but his voice remained uncooperative. A door suddenly slammed shut setting off a chain reaction of pounding in his head. Squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, Brian tried to piece together the last thing he remembered. And then wished that he hadn’t. Because the pain in his head was joined by a dull ache somewhere in the proximity of his heart.  
Was it months, weeks, the time frame was fuzzy. But he remembered that he’d pushed it just a little too hard. And Dom had hung up on him. That shouldn’t have hit him the way it did. Dom always hung up on him. That was the routine. Brian talked, he assumed Dom listened. 

Then each time when it seemed as though Brian had come to a natural end in the conversation, he heard the dial tone on the other end. Those other times were fine, but last time, the last time he’d needed...

Well that was the problem he thought, he’d needed and blown it. Dom hung up on him. He tried to concentrate harder. Obviously something else had happened. Something to get him injured. Again. 

The thought flickered very briefly that Dom had come back from wherever he was and kicked his ass, this time for being such a pussy. With eyes still closed, Brian raised his hand to the bandage again. But there were no sudden flashes of imagery in his mind’s eye to explain. And it occurred to him that he wasn’t even certain where he was. 

Gathering all of his will once more, he forced his eyes to open, then clutched the fabric beneath him as he rode out the light’s assault. Blinking his eyes slowly until they adjusted to the light, Brian was relieved to see that he was in his own living room, on his own couch. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place or changed from the last time he remembered being conscious. With great care, he shifted his legs over the side of the couch and gently pulled himself in an upright position. 

The room swam for a few minutes before settling into it’s familiar shape. A small groan escaped as the pain in his head richoceted from one side to the other. Now that he was upright, Brian could see that a few things were slightly displaced. His coffee table was cockeyed, pushed out from the couch and there appeared to be a dried dark substance on the corner. 

It looked like dried blood. On top of the table, instead of his usual post-work Corona, there was what could best be described as a family size bottle of Jack Daniels.  
Jack Daniels. I don’t - he thought, I don’t drink Jack Daniels, except - Except when he did. The Detective stared at the nearly empty bottle and the memories of the preceding days washed over him in a flood..

****************************

After Dom hung up, he’d sat on his couch for a long time simply staring at the wall, wondering how badly he’d screwed up whatever he and the other man were doing, wondering if the risk was still too great for him to pull his own phone records to search for a callback number. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, he’d talked himself out of the phone records idea and simply programmed his land line to forward to his cell. The next day was business as usual. 

The post-mortem raid on the dealer’s house turned up enough evidence to allow them to get arrest warrants for several accomplices on a variety of charges. Deep suffusion in the take down adrenaline rush allowed the Detective to not think about his phone buddy, until the call didn’t come, and didn’t come. As he sat at his desk filling out paperwork, with his cell right in front of him, Brian couldn’t pretend that he’d missed the call. The call wasn’t going to come.

The second morning after Dom hung up on him, he’d had a little trouble getting himself out of bed. The hangover was slight, but still a hangover nevertheless. They’d served two arrest warrants that day before things went seriously sideways for him. 

O’Conner would probably never remember the specific words, but the perps taunts and jeers as they were hooking him up hit Brian all kinds of wrong. And before they could get the man fully braceleted, like the proverbial white on rice, Brian was all over him. Screaming at him, punching him. Afterwards, he couldn’t remember all of the in between, but there was blood on his punching hand and it had taken two men, his partner and someone else to pull him off. Paramedics were called.

An hour later the Detective was in his lieu’s office being good copped/bad copped. First there was the ferocious chewing out, then commiseration about the loss of the child on his watch and finally a suggestion he check in the with the department shrink. The last thing O’Conner needed or wanted was anyone messing around in his head so he defended that it was just the adrenaline rush that had gotten out of hand. He trained his most sincere look on his boss and said that he was fine. 

The Lieu who had seen and heard his share of bullshit fired back, "Fine, doesn’t give scum the grounds to sue the city. Detective O’Conner you’re suspended for seven days without pay."

On his way home from the station, Brian made a pit stop at Happy Time Liquor. He would spend the forced time off getting as numb as he could. Alone in his house, just as he was about to uncap the bottle of Jack, hope reared its destructive head. Brian waited as the time for Dom’s call came and went again. Hope whispered maybe in his ear and he managed to hold out for part of the next day, busying himself with doing long overdue laundry. 

When he could stand it no longer, he made himself look at the clock. His chest tightened as though he were suffocating. Dumping the basket of clean clothes on the bed, he made his way back to the couch. Wasting no more time, he uncapped. The first hit loosened the tightness as did the subsequent ones until...

****************************

Brian reached out for the Jack. He could get the returning pain to go away. He grasped the neck of the bottle... Mia flitted through his mind. And his hand faltered. Mia despised him and yet she’d been in his home with someone who had apparently given him some medical attention. His eyes strayed to the dark dryness on the corner of the table as he gingerly touched his left temple again. "For God’s sake open your eyes so that I can get out of here. I have better things to do than make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit."

She’d been there until he came to, obviously she hadn’t wanted to be, but she was. And there was only one person she would set aside her hatred for, do anything for. That revelation sent Brian immediately to his feet. A move he instantly regretted. He waited for his body to stop swaying and the room to stop spinning before he took a tentative step forward. When he didn’t fall he took another, his eyes sweeping the room for his cell phone. The first sweep produced no evidence of the phone. Lowering himself gingerly to the carpet, he began to feel around under the couch. His fingers touched the familiar plastic immediately. Jerking the phone into the light, Brian checked the display. The screen glowed green the record of ten missed calls from an unknown i.d.

Clutching the phone in his hand the battered man let the knowledge wash over him. Dom had called. Repeatedly. And when there was no answer he’d sent his sister. There was something like the sting of relieved tears behind his eyelids which Brian quickly squeezed away. Being a pussy is what got him into this mess to begin with he chastised himself.

He sat back on his haunches for a few minutes, trying to marshal his thoughts into some kind of order. Flipping the phone open for date and time information, the Detective discovered that it was before sunrise on his third day of suspension. 

The knowledge that Dom had sent Mia warmed Brian though he knew that it shouldn’t. Whatever Dom had said to his sister hadn’t dented her attitude toward him. But still, to some degree he had been given a small piece of what he needed.

Finally rousing himself from the floor, O’Conner grabbed the neck of the bottle once more and shambled into the kitchen where he poured what was left into the sink. Opening the fridge to get a bottle of water, he found two more bottles of Jack which he had no trouble resisting as he snagged two Aquafinas.

Managing to make it to the bathroom with only a minimal of roiling in his stomach, Brian winced in the bathroom’s harsh light. Gently pulling the gauze away, he looked at his injury. It was gashed just below the hairline on his left temple, not deep enough for stitches, but he would have a scar. Replacing the pad of gauze, he reached into the medicine cabinet for the bottle of extra strength Bufferin. Sprinkling four pills in his hand, he swallowed them all at once and downed both bottles of water. 

Figuring a shower would help with clearing his head that much more, Brian stepped in and turned the water on as cold as he could stand it. Closing his eyes he stood under the spray, and let it revive him.  
Though he tried not to be a twelve year old girl with a boy band crush, he couldn’t silence the refrain in his head. He called me back, he called me back, he called me back, he called me back. And the thought of that actually made him feel as though he might not be falling apart quite as badly after all.

Toweling dry, Brian felt a little more like himself as he stepped into his bedroom to find something to wear. Not up to dealing with zippers and buttons, he rooted through the laundry on the bed and snagged a pair of LAPD sweat pants.

Turning toward his dresser mirror to check the side of his head again, he found himself blinking several times to make sure that he wasn’t suffering a hangover induced hallucination. In the corner of the mirror, next to the postcard he’d received from Dom was a second identical card. With trembling hand, Brian reached for it. Turning it over, he was stunned to find that the information obscured on the first postcard was unaltered on the second. Puntarenas, Costa Rica. The white sand, blue water was in Costa Rica. Dominic Toretto was in Costa Rica. 

There was a number written on the back of the card and O’Conner was almost halfway out of the room to get his cell before he realized that there weren’t enough numbers to constitute a phone number. Catching himself in the doorway of his bedroom, he leaned heavily against the door jamb. Dom was in Costa Rica.

*******************************

After giving the cab driver instructions to take him to whichever hotel was the most popular with tourists, he leaned his head back against the seat and let out a relieved sigh. There hadn’t really been time to make a room reservation. He’d started to boot up his laptop to find a flight on the internet and then realized that he needed to minimize the paper trail as much as he could.

He threw some clothes in a bag while he called a cab to take him to the bank and then to Bob Hope Airport. Once at the airport, he’d found an Aeromexico flight that was leaving for Tijuana. Once in Mexico, he would find a flight that connected into Costa Rica. He paid for his ticket in cash. 

On the plane he’d been unable to relax completely and allowed the flight attendant who flirted with him to act as a distraction. Finding a connecting flight was indeed easy and now nearly seven hours later he was in the back of a cab moving through the port city of Puntarenas. From what Brian could see there wasn’t much to the place. It was the kind of beautiful sunny places with palm trees seemed to be by default, but a little wilted around the edges.

There hadn’t been anything on the back of the postcard besides the number, but given what appeared to be a relatively small area to cover, Brian felt an optimism that he hadn’t in a couple of months. 

"Senor, we are here." Brian lifted his head to look at the art deco ugliness they were pulling in front of. His plan such as it was was simple. He would stake out the city. If he didn’t find Dom before his suspension was up, he would ask for more time. He knew that request wouldn’t be hard to swing. He’d just play the counseling card. 

"Donde esta um, gift shop?"

The front desk clerk smiled at him benignly and pointed to an area just off the bustling lobby. As Brian crossed the lobby to the shop, his step faltered. The postcard that Dom had sent him was prominently displayed. Dom was here. He knew that thought was irrational. 

This particular postcard was obviously very popular. Dom probably could have bought it anywhere in the city, perhaps anywhere in the country, but Brian allowed the idea that Dom had actually been there to encourage him. In the shop he bought a guide book, a map and a listing of rental properties. Finding a quiet corner in the lobby, Brian spread out his purchases and began to put a plan together.

"Hello." 

Startled, the Detective looked up from the map he’d spread across the low table in front of him. A cute deeply tanned blond grinned down at him. Australian or English. He’d only just caught the accent.  
"Hi." Brian smiled back at her. 

"I’m sightseeing ‘round the city today and I wondered," her eyes traveled over the guidebook and map, "I wondered if you’d like to come along." Brian heard the kindness in the offer, but his mind couldn’t help slipping into cop. He was a stranger. There was no way that she should be inviting a man she didn’t know to go with her. She must have seen something of that in his face because her grin got a little bit brighter. 

"I mean me and my mates are going ‘round the city today. You look like you’re making it harder than it has to be be." 

"Yeah, um..." Brian felt a little flip in his stomach. It could start now. The search for Dom was on. 

"I’m actually here with a friend of mine."

"He can come too." 

"Well we got separated somehow so I’m looking for him. How long have you been here?"

"We just got in today we’re taking the ferry tomorrow to the Nicoya Penninsula. What’s your friend look like?"

"About six feet, buff, bald." He stopped there, realizing that Dom probably wasn’t going under his own name. And it would look pretty odd if he couldn’t give her a name.

"What’s his name?" Shit. Brian switched tacts immediately. He stood up so that there was less distance between them and moved in just a little closer as if to tell her a secret.

"Um, we..." Brian looked away, then looked down at his feet before sweeping her with a gaze that was a mixture of both apprehension and embarrassment. 

Her grinned turned knowing. " Oh I get it, a little summer thing huh." There was no condemnation so Brian figured this was the line to pursue. "Yeah, um we didn’t do so well on the name thing, but I mean I gave him my real name, it’s Brian, but I didn’t actually catch his."

"Got it, okay then," the girl kept grinning. "If we see a tall, buff bald American, right, we’ll let him know Brian, the blue eyed blond whose world he rocked, is looking for him."

And that’s the result he wanted a few extra eyes, but her assessment seemed perhaps a little close for comfort. Apparently the boy band thing was written all over him.  
  
"Uh, well yeah. If you do see him let him know he can leave a message for me at the front desk."

"Although if you come out with us you might find some other tall, buff and bald to spend time with."

"Thanks uh -

"Tabitha." 

"Thanks Tabitha. I’m just gonna hang out here for a bit still. It was nice to meet you."

"You too Brian. Cheers." 

Brian watched her leave the lobby. It was a long shot, but since the girl seemed to have no problem approaching strangers there was a chance that it might help. He only hoped that if she saw Dom he wasn’t with Letty. It would be hard for Dom to explain the rocking of the world thing.

****************************

The maps and guide book helped him narrow his search to a specific part of town and he determined that it might be as simple as going door to door. Before setting out from the hotel he made a reservation for the night and set his plan in motion. According to the front desk clerk the first area he wanted to hit was within walking distance.

In the end it proved to be what was simple was what worked. There were six houses of varying sizes in Brian’s targeted area. Though the individual houses had gates, it wasn’t a gated community. As he cased the first property, it dawned on him that he could simply use the same story that he’d used back at the hotel. The property had a gate with a key pad coded entry and an intercom. He buzzed the intercom and when a voice answered.

"Si."

"Hey, it’s Brian." There was silence and he waited. 

"Que." 

Brian quickly gave his apology and moved on. The next two houses there was no answer on the intercom. At both homes, Brian punched in the memorized number from the postcard into the respective keypads. Invalid flashed in green both times. But it felt right to him that that’s what the numbers were.

The next house he approached was a two story wood and glass structure that sort of resembled a tree house, It had a high front gate and a keypad entry just as the previous two houses had. Brian stepped up to the gate and tried the intercom. Getting no answer, he immediately began punching the numbers in the keypad. The snick right before the gate began to slide open took him by such surprise that he almost fell over. 

 

Once the gate had opened just enough for him to slide his body through, he did so, punching the code on the other side so that the gate reversed on the track and started immediately closing behind him. 

With the sound of the gate closing behind him, uncertainty broke over Brian O’Conner like a wave. All of his attention had been so Dom focused that it hadn’t occurred to him until the instant the gate began to close how perfect a setup this might be. He’d assumed that the phone calls had been from Dom because nothing was ever said to contradict that assumption, because that’s who he wanted it to be. He assumed the postcards were from Dom. But maybe, he thought as he crouched at an angle, partially obscured from the front door and more than a little frozen in place, what if it had been a setup by Mia or Dom or both of them. 

 

He hadn’t told anyone where he was going and he’d covered his tracks as best he could. Hours ago, with the fresh knowledge of Dom’s whereabouts in his hands, it had seemed like the best way to handle the situation. But now, he was vulnerable. Now he was a possible candidate for having his body dumped in the Pacific.


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all comes together, sort of.

Crouched in semi-cover, Brian let his eyes close for just an instant to pull himself together. Set-up or legitimate invitation, his need had not abated. The truth of it washed over the cop. The immediate sense of loss he'd felt the moment the semi impacted with the Charger was the same immediate sense of loss he felt when Dom hung up on him that last time. He hadn't had to live with it the first time and he now knew that he wouldn't be able to live with the loss now. This close to Dominic Toretto again, he would do what he needed to see the man  
Brian opened his eyes and allowed his training to work. Big heavily tinted glass windows covered most of the facade providing easy concealment of anyone surveilling his movements. The windows appeared tightly shut. The Detective figured that no one was pointing a gun at his head. At least, not yet. That knowledge allowed O ’Conner to relax just a fraction. Other than the banana tree leaves that partially hid him, not much cover existed between the gate and the front door. Cocking his head slightly, he realized that since the snick of the gate closing, he hadn’t detected any man made sound coming from the property. 

 

Focusing on the detached four car garage adjacent to the house, the Detective’s tension eased just that little bit more. Bringing with them quick wash of comfort, memories of time spent at the Toretto garage, of time spent working with Dom on the Supra assailed him. 

 

A full grin split his features. It would be interesting to see what Dom was driving down here. Maybe the Supra managed to survive.  
Moving in a kind of crouch run, Brian quickly crossed the distance from his hiding place to the medium width terra cotta path separating the house from the garage. Six small windows ran along the upper side of the of the garage. Brian stretched himself out of his crouch, to his full height, so that he could get a good look. 

The contents of the space so stunned him that his duffle bag slipped to the ground out of a suddenly nerveless hand. His body soon followed.  
The contents put an idea on the table that he hadn’t considered. A different kind of setup. A mouse playing with its prey kind of set-up. Blinking rapidly, Brian stretched once again to look through the window and confirm that the injury on the side of his head wasn’t causing him to hallucinate.

 

Unless his hallucination was on a continuous reel, Brian had to accept the truth of what he saw. There was nothing in the garage. Not one car, which he could have attributed to no one being home, were it not for the lack of anything in the garage to suggest that cars had ever been there. There were no oil stains, no tools, no boxes for parts. The garage was completely clean. The full realization of that hit the man harder than the possibility that Dom was leading him into some sort of trap. 

 

In considering the possibility of a setup, Brian hadn’t allowed for a setup that would put him on a cold trail. Son of a bitch.  
The previous anticipation of being face to face with Toretto drained from him, leaving Brian battling the flickerings of the same despair he’d felt when Dom hung up on him. It was the same despair he’d felt right before taking the first slug of Jack Daniels. 

 

If Dom was gone, and the garage was a good indicator of that truth, the investigator in him suggested there might be some vital clue or evidence on the rest of the property that could point him in the right direction. That investigative instinct, however, was in a dogfight with the more potent grief. Brian didn’t know if he could face further evidence of Dom’s absence.

****************************

For the second instance in a frighteningly short span of time, Brian O’Conner wondered if maybe the gash in his temple was a more serious injury than it originally appeared. The over the counter painkillers he’d taken on the plane were wearing off. He wondered if the dull ache that was now trying to insinuate itself into his consciousness might be the cause of the current tropical mirage.

 

Shaking slightly, Brian squeezed his eyes tightly shut and opened them again. In the same way it had with the empty garage, the image before him did not change upon second sight. Dominic Toretto lay on one of six midnight blue chaises about twenty feet away from him beside a kidney shaped pool. The other five lounges were empty. 

 

After the discovery of the empty garage, Brian had remained crouched and in battle with himself. Briefly the idea of grabbing his bag and not stopping until he reached the airport crossed his mind. He was tired, hungover, and emotionally wrung out. He needed to go home and get a handle on his life. He needed to get his career out of the toilet. And still it was there with everything else. He needed to see Dominic Toretto, to talk to him, but he couldn’t make himself look for clues. Not yet. 

He’d decided to make his way to the beach. To see the white sand and blue water that had gotten him to Costa Rica in the first place. The terra cotta path had dead-ended at the concrete which surrounded the pool behind the house.  
His first steps forward were shaky, but his stride became more sure as he got closer. Two feet away he hesitated and waited for a reaction, but there was none. Dom had one arm thrown over his face obscuring all, but a part of one closed eyelid, his nose and mouth. The fingers of his other hand were hidden just under the waistband of his low rise board shorts. 

Less than a foot away from the prone, apparently sleeping man, Brian peered into what he could see of Dom’s face. Careful not to bend too far over and create a tell tale shade, careful not to kick over the empty bottles of Corona on the ground beside the chaise. 

Watching for a change in the other man=s breathing. the cop lowered himself to an adjacent lounge. Nothing in Toretto’s demeanor changed. Brian allowed for the possibility that Dom was playing. But it didn’t matter. The despair of only a few minutes ago had already begun to dissipate. 

The last time he’d seen the racer, the other man had been battered and bleeding. Blue eyes swept down Dom’s naked, sweat beaded torso. A couple of scars on the upper part of his chest appeared recent, but for the most part, the body before him was unblemished. The board shorts rode low enough to expose the cut of his pelvis. 

There had always been a kind of figurative stillness about Dom, but in the face of his literal stillness, the word touchable slid through Brian’s consciousness. There was a part of him that wanted to reach out and - 

"I...." Brian ran the trembling hand he’d almost touched Dom with through his hair as he tried to distract himself with words.

"You’ll be happy to know that Mia still hates me. Really hates me." He blurted and waited to see if there was any reaction. He thought Dom’s lips might have twitched slightly, but he couldn’t be sure. And it didn’t matter.

And as if he’d simply answered the phone and not traveled for hours, the Detective let the words continue quietly. 

"I...I think I’m losing that cool man. I...I beat a perp, but that...before that there was a thing with a kid. Domestic, that went down bad, really bad. And my partner and I..and we didn’t stop it. And this asshole starts in with all this noise. And I remember the first punch, but not the rest. The paramedics had to be called. There was a lot of blood, I think. I know I should have stayed frosty, but I don’t think I even know where the frosty button is anymore. And I’m probably hallucinating right now so - "

Nothing but Dom’s shallow breathing and the ebb and flow of the Pacific Ocean greeted the Detective’s confession. The blues eyes swept along the body again. And as if from away, Brian watched as his fingers ghosted across Dom’s steadily beating heart, hesitating for just an instant There was no reaction.

And because Dom couldn’t hang up on him, as was their custom, Brian stood and made his way around the pool toward the beach. He didn’t look back.

*********************

He stood at the ocean’s edge letting the white noise of the water blank his mind. He stood at the ocean’s edge until the heat at his back from the sun changed to the heat of a more earthbound source.  
Powerful fingers pressed against Brian’s adam’s apple. For several minutes the touch alternated between a deadly pressure and a kind of caress. The touch was the only point of contact between the two men.

"You ruined my life Detective. I think I owe you a broken neck," gruffed the familiar voice. 

And then there was the choking pressure again. Brian’s heart threatened to trip hammer out of his chest, yet he made no move to stop what was happening. A quick flare of self-knowledge blazed in his consciousness. If this is what Dom needed to do -. Suddenly both the pressure and the warmth disappeared. 

Smoothing his fingers over his throat to ease the ache, Brian turned in time to see Dom’s naked back disappearing toward the house. After swallowing a couple of times to make sure that he was still able, Brian did the only thing he could. He followed Dom.


	5. Original Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian and Dom try to make sense of it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up writing more than one ending for this fic. This is the original or first ending.

Brian thought it might be German that he heard as he approached the living room, but he couldn’t be sure. Standing on the threshold of the room that was colorfully, yet tastefully appointed in muted melon, pea green and royal blue, he watched as Dom, sprawled in an overstuffed armchair, flicked through channels on the flat screen television. His finger barely stopped long enough for any of the programming to truly register. Spanish language variety shows, old American tv shows, and again something that sounded like German and looked like a game show.

Dom tossed the remote on the table and picked up his beer. That action drew Brian’s eyes to the glass coffee table where sweat from two six packs worth of Corona dotted the surface. 

Taking hesitant steps into the living room, he expected, with each of those steps, for Dom to turn to him, to turn _on_ him. Still, Brian could not help but move toward the unoccupied couch adjacent to the armchair. 

When there was still no acknowledgment from the big man, Brian lowered himself onto the end of the couch the farthest from Dom and reached for a beer. He was halfway through his second beer, on the road to figuring out the possibly German inanity on the tv, when Dom took a long pull from his beer, then spoke.

 

"When Mia hit puberty, Vince was all she could see. I mean all." Dom’s attention didn’t waver from the television. 

 

The bottle nearly to Brian’s mouth stopped midway. And he waited. 

 

"You walked into something that wasn’t about you." Dom opened another beer.

"Vince wasn’t gonna do anything. She was way too young. He didn’t want me to kill him, but damn she was relentless. Eventually, she sort of got the hint that a full frontal assault wasn’t gonna work. For awhile it seemed like she’d let it go. And then you know, she got older, got legal and I see Vince looking and trying not to. And I’m not the only one that notices. Mia sees and she puts him through hell. And that’s their thing. Cha Cha Cha. It hurt Vince. No one else gets to do that. And there is no forgiveness. Blood barely covers it."

 

The cop downed the rest of the beer and reached for his third. Betraying Dom had cut him deep, but using Mia, a civilian, to cement his cover haunted him. After his release from the hospital, the Detective had tried to make himself available to her. To in some way narrow the void created by her brother’s absence. White hot fury met his every attempt. It eased him a little that she’d been running her own game. They were equal players of a sort. Though it was a little twisted, it comforted him that were it not for the sibling tie, Dom would also be on the same lifetime shit list. 

Dom had given him something of value and he wanted to do the same in return.

 

"I’m a cop." 

 

"Yeah, a bad one," Dom snorted, still fully focused on his tv. 

 

Stung, the Detective’s beer bottle hit the coffee table with an angry thud. 

"Don’t."

Dom continued to watch the flickering images, but Brian could see the smirk just as clearly as if Dom was looking him in the eye. 

 

"You smack down a bad guy. You seriously lose your shit over some dude and his old lady’s bad marriage -" Brian inhaled sharply, but Dom just kept talking.

 

And that’s like an every day occurrence in your business, right? And... you aided and abetted - ."

"You were a mistake."

"I beg your pardon." Dom’s head finally swivelled to look at Brian, but O’Conner’s eyes were trained on the label he was slowly flaking off onto the table. 

 

"A fluke. That dealer...and his associates, people like them, they prey on weakness, on people in pain. They don’t need to be on the streets. I can stop assholes like that. And I’m good. I can absolutely do the job. _You_ don’t count."

"Somehow, I don’t think the Feds share that vision." An angry shrug of the shoulders was O’Conner’s only answer. Dom turned his attention back to the German game show that seemed to have morphed into a French talk show.

************************** 

Dom stared hard at the snoring blond on his couch. Brian O’Conner in his damn living room, again. And at his mercy. It was beyond ridiculous that he was there while the others were in the wind. It didn’t make any sense.

The irritated racer hip checked the couch, _hard_. The sleeping man didn’t stir. Dom bumped the couch again and raised his voice to just below a shout, "O’CONNER GET UP." 

 

Brian jerked, his eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. "O’CONNER."

"Yeah, yeah. I’m up. I’m up." Brian answered hoarsely as he flung himself into an upright position. "I’m up." Bleary, sleepy blues turned to look at Dom.

 

"Your bag is upstairs, in the bedroom at the far end of the hall." Dom waited for the slow nod of acknowledgment before walking away.

**************************

An hour later, still slightly shower damp, Brian appeared barefoot on the kitchen threshold in hip riding jeans and a t-shirt. Perched on a stool at the breakfast island, Dom’s eyes flicked up from the piece of paper he’d just scratched something down on. "Unless you intend to stay drunk we gotta go pick up some food."

 

"I’m not hungover. I ...I just haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately."

 

"Uh huh."

"Are Letty and Leon back..um with the car?" Dom’s eyes dropped back to the piece of paper. "There isn’t any car. Low profile you know." And he started writing again. Brian waited for a twenty on Letty and Leon, but Dom just kept writing. 

 

"Okaay." Brian muttered under his breath as he combed his fingers absently through his curling hair. Dom scratched something else down then got up and went to one of the drawers. Reaching in, he pulled out a couple of items and foisted them on Brian. 

 

"Unless you want to walk through town barefoot, and I  don‘t advise it, put on your shoes and let’s go. The day’s not getting any younger."

 

Flicking his eyes to the clock just above the fridge, Brian was startled to see that it was three o’clock. He’d slept almost an entire day. On Dom’s couch. In peace. Peacefully. Huh, he thought as he glanced down at the baseball cap and sunglasses Dom had shoved into his hands. 

 

And he couldn’t help but grin, "Geez, all I need now is the fake nose."

 

"O’CONNER, LET’S GO." 

************************

They looked like a couple of dorks. Tourist dorks. And that was the point the detective thought wryly. The horror of his wraparound sunglasses with pastel ear pieces and mirrored lenses was only seconded by the Skoal Bandit baseball cap as snug on his head as his bandage would allow. It had taken quite a bit of self control for him, not to bust out laughing when he first saw Dom’s disguise. 

 

The best Brian could say about it was that he looked like a reject from the French Foreign Legion. The cap riding low on Dom’s head came complete with flaps. Brian hated Dom’s headgear, but it concealed his distinctive baldness and pulled the eyes away from his face. All anyone would most likely take away from an encounter with Dom was the hideousness of the hat, the so retro mirrored sunglasses and the blindingly tropical shirt over his wife beater.

 

As he watched the other tourists teeming up and down the Paseo, Brian had to admit that Dom knew exactly what he was doing. He was well hidden in plain sight.

On the walk into town and subsequent shopping there had been virtually no conversation. There had been more than a few conversation starters on Brian’s tongue from the moment they left the house, but he was uncertain of Dom’s mood. The tacit invitation to stay suggested that the two men had reached some sort of truce, but the continued absence of Letty and Leon and Dom’s reticence about their whereabouts had thrown Brian off. So he’d allowed the silence to play. 

 

Watching Dom move around the market checking his list, it was obvious that he’d done it before. Brian wondered if the other times he’d been alone. The thought that Dom had been alone these last months caused a little bit of a tremor to run through Brian. In his vision of the great escape, it had always included the remaining three members of the team. Together. He watched quietly as Dom began bartering, in Spanish, with the fishmonger.

The night Dom hung up on him, after programming his land line to forward to his cell, he’d drunk two beers in quick succession hoping to dull the welling pain that he didn’t fully understand. The sleep he’d fallen into afterwards had been less than restful and there had been a nightmare. It hadn’t been anything so obvious as a bloody child asking him _why_ , but there had been blood. A lot of blood. 

 

The dream had been forgotten until he saw Dom talking to the fishmonger. Remnants of it flashed and instead of its non-specific bloody horror, there was Dom with his hands covered in blood and guts. Fish blood and guts were nothing compared to a child’s head no longer whole, tiny body blanketed in blood, but the cop didn’t think he could see that in the real. He also didn’t think that he could explain it to Dom who seemed to think it was all in a days work for him. So he didn’t try.

Reaching into his pocket, Brian retrieved a hand full of bills and shoved them at Dom. 

"Please, just get it already cleaned, cut up whatever, okay." And then he’d walked away toward a souvenir stand.

"You ready to go." Dom’s voice was deep and gruff at his shoulder about ten minutes later.

"Yeah," Brian answered.

"Here, carry this." Dom thrust a white wrapped package into his hands, turned and walked away. Brian was gratified not to find, as his fingers traced package, the outline of either a fish head or tail. A smile of relief creased his face as he turned to follow Dom back to the house. 

*********************

In the time between selection for the undercover assignment and his first day at Mia’s lunch counter, Brian O’Conner experienced insomnia inducing anxiety. The small hours before deployment found him driving the deserted streets of the city, concentrating as hard as he could on the sound of his engine, the white dashes of the road, concentrating on anything other than the fear that he might blow his assignment. Once under, fear of failure, had been replaced by fear of discovery. That fear, fueled by Vince’s unremitting scrutiny, clung to him like a low grade fever. 

As Tran was led away, there had been near orgasmic relief. He’d survived his first undercover and fully expected that he could retain his friendship with Dom. He’d figured there would be some initial anger over his duplicity, but in the end it would be golden. When Tran came up clean on the highjackings, there had been anger, depression. 

As Brian chopped celery for the salad and kept an eye on the bread warming in the oven, he tried to pin down where he was on the emotional map. He felt...He couldn’t characterize it as good. exactly, not with Letty and Leon apparently missing. But he did feel... okay. Even. Everything was on the table. _Dom, please talk to me._  
  
With his own plea echoing in his head, he allowed himself to think about what he might have said if Dom hadn’t hung up on him. He thought about what the exact color and texture of his need had been in that moment. Absently, he swept the celery into a bowl as he wondered if what he needed was different now that Dom was just a few feet away.   


Probably not more than thirty words had passed between the two men since Dom woke him. They’d returned from the Paseo much the same way they had gone, in virtual silence. Back at the house they’d gotten down to the serious business of getting chow on the table. Brian had handed the fish off to Dom who took it back with a slight nod and set about making a marinade. Brian put away everything else as easily if it were his own kitchen. 

_********************_

"Man that was good. I mean really good." Brian grinned at Dom as he lifted his bottle of water and took a long pull. 

"Well it’s not exactly tuna without the crust." Dom dead panned.

"No, that it’s not but still -." 

The dining, like the shopping and the dinner preparation had transpired mostly in silence. But Dom had made a joke of sorts and Brian decided he might not get another opening. 

"Dom, where’s Leon?" 

"Met a girl, he’s getting to know her better." 

"And Letty?"

The other man stared hard at his dinner companion. Brian’s grip tightened a little on his water bottle, but he held Dom’s eyes. 

"Gone."

"That a mutual decision?"

"It’s the right thing."

"How long?"

"A few days." 

Brian accepted the proximity of Letty’s departure to his arrival somberly, surprised again the he wasn’t currently on the receiving end of another ass kicking.

Since they were doing the hard questions, Brian pressed on.

"That day, that last day, did you want to kill me? Did you want me dead?"

Dom’s gaze did not waver from the eyes on him. "Brian Spilner no, Brian O’Conner yeah."

"Brian Spilner didn’t save Vince’s ass. Brian Spilner didn’t give you his keys," the other man shot back softly. Toretto’s eyes widened for a moment at the echo of the words that had whispered through his mind that day. 

Unreadable brown eyes dropped away from Brian’s. He was willing to let the silence play. Brian broke it. 

"That what you still want?" 

Dom shrugged and stared at the water in the pool. "Well, I haven’t taken my shots. I didn’t make a move. So..." 

"What shots?"

"On the beach. When my sister found your ass passed out and bleeding. That would have been the time to make a move _._ Drunk, fuck up cop dies in an accident." 

Shooting hand twitching, Brian shoved himself out of his chair, The vulnerability of his situation slamming home again. Maybe it was better if Dom didn’t talk to him.

"Is a fuck up cop gonna have a drowning accident?" 

Dom’s gaze slid from the pool to the other man. " Siddown blondie."

"Go to hell." 

Dom’s arms swept in front of him in a gesture that said already there. Despair flickered briefly in his eyes and was gone. It threw Brian off balance. He took a step back literally, figuratively. For a few minutes he simply stared at Dom who looked back with the twist of a bitter smirk on his lips. His eyes now opaque.

Brian let his own eyes close briefly. He made a concerted effort to locate the cool Dom seemed to think he had. He concentrated on thinking through this moment, the anger, the fear, the hurt. The investigator he was tried to put pieces together. 

He was in Costa Rica because Dom had summoned him. There was no other way to put it. And he had come without thought, without prejudice, as fast as he could. And the calls, had never been the set-up Brian always thought they might have been in those moments right after each one ended. He hadn’t arrived to find that Dom and the rest of the team had been laughing at him. 

Dom had had chances to hurt him, to take revenge but he’d let them go. Instead he’d let Brian sleep uninterrupted on his couch, brought in the bag he’d left in the yard, and deferred to his fish suggestion. Had in effect made dinner for him. 

Dom and Brian Spilner had been friends. It couldn’t be that much of a leap for Brian O’Conner and Dom to be that at least.. Hadn’t they already started. 

Newly calmed, the cop turned his back to Dom and moved toward a side table near the grill, picked up the satellite sound system remote. Behind him, Dom watched impassively. 

Switching the system on, Brian scrolled through the selections until he found the music he wanted. Easy listening with style filled the patio. Turning to face the other man, he held his hand up and beckoned. 

Dom snorted, but stood up and moved around the table. He stopped a couple of feet away from the blonde. 

"What? This your move O’Conner? You wanna dance with me?"

"Well the tango was traditionally danced by men, but I don’t think this is the right music."

"Okay." Dom folded his arms across his chest and waited. Brian dropped his own and let the music take him for a few minutes. Let it further cement his calm.

" I wonder..." He flashed clear and guiless eyes on Dom, "if you can touch me without wanting to hurt me?" 

This was the need spoken out loud, distilled. Brian didn’t back away from it. He’d envied the easy affection between Dom and the other guys on the team. He missed it. He wanted it back.

Smirk still firmly in place, Dom stepped closer. 

"You want to do a little sparring? See if I can pull my punches?" 

Dom threw a few shadow uppercuts then flashed a predatory grin. Shrugging his shoulders, Brian just smiled and let his arms dangle at his sides. And Toretto’s dulled anger suddenly sharpened. He took a step back then stopped himself. Brian had thrown down a gauntlet and he wasn’t about to back away. His fists clenched and unclenched. 

The anger was almost right there again. Dom realized it might be too risky to spar, that he actually might not be able to pull his punches. But he wouldn’t concede this round to Brian. Taking two long strides, Dom was suddenly toe to toe with the other man. There was all kinds of sparring and Dom could do it with the best of them. 

The initial press of his lips to Brian’s, in full expectation of a retreat from the other man, was tentative. He was met with the hesitant resistance of surprise, not retreat. And then the slightly chapped lips underneath Dom’s parted just enough. From habit his tongue swept over the bottom lip under his mouth, tasting, possessing before slipping inside the wet heat. There was a slight familiarity in the taste of the kiss. He’d tasted the same slight lemon tang, a remnant of the marinade on Letty. Letty loved it when he kissed her, loved how he kissed her. The thread of his thought lost for a moment as the kiss inexplicably deepened. It’s not Letty. It was time to stop. He’d obviously won the round.

 

The increasingly active, aggressive tangle of Brian’s tongue with his put a momentary stop to coherent thought. They were touching nowhere else but tongues and mouths. Suddenly, there was firm pressure on Dom’s chest. Firm enough to shove him backwards. 

Startled, he stumbled a few feet before steadying himself. 

"Brian -" 

O’Conner held his hand up and gave a quick tight shake of his head to cut Toretto off. Turning abruptly, he reeled away into the night. 

Tongue still tingling, Dom watched as Brian’s back disappeared into the blue blackness.

"Yeah, O’Conner," he said to the resultant emptiness, "apparently, I _can_ touch you without hurting you." He stared in the direction of Brian’s retreat for a few minutes before heading into the night in the opposite direction..

********************

In the morning, he found O’Conner sitting in the kitchen nursing a barely touched Corona. His eyes flicked over the other man. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before, but his hair was wet and curling at his neck, barefoot. Dom hadn’t heard Brian come in, but he’d also been in his bedroom drinking. 

Brian didn’t acknowledge Dom. His eyes remained focused on his bottle of beer. _"Making A Move 101_ kid. Don’t make a move unless you have something to back it up with."   
  
Brian lasered on the deep brown eyes mocking him. His eyes drifted to the mouth that had so completely taken his. Then back to those eyes. He didn’t say anything immediately, letting it register with Dom that the silence was weighted. Deliberate. 

Dom folded his arms and waited. Brian spoke softly. 

"I’m in love with you."

Dominic Toretto’s harsh, rasping laugh filled the kitchen. 

"Dude, don’t tell me that you’re that guy? You that vanilla? You flunk Puberty 101 too? You got a little tuned up when I kissed you. You think it’s love ? The wind blows, a guy gets hard. It’s no thing." 

"Vanilla? Is that what you tasted when your tongue was down my throat?"

The voice remained as quiet as it had when he made the admission of his feelings. And there was no challenge there.

Anger flashfired through Dom like it had the first time he ruined his life, like it had just before attempted murder of a law enforcement officer joined the list of his charges. Hands curled into tight fists, he took just the tiniest step toward Brian with intent. And then just as quickly, in the same mocking tone he’d used on the other man seconds before, Dom’s own voice echoed in his head. _So you’re that guy. The guy that beats on people who love him."_

********************

Although born and raised in Southern California, Dom wasn’t much for the beach. The beach interrupted a perfectly great drive along the winding curves of Sunset boulevard. Standing with still balled fists still shoved into his pockets and the grit of sand beneath his bare feet, the fallen racer hadn’t felt the absence of his ride more acutely than he did now. He didn’t want to be standing at the edge of the shore watching the tide roll in and out. An open road. He needed the whiplash of Sunset boulevard, to the straight burn up PCH to clear his head. Dom squeezed his eyes shut as he imagined himself on the road, in the car of his choice. But even there, his imagining was colored by the blonde he’d left barefoot in his kitchen. Brian was now a part of the memory. The last time he did PCH, he was shotgun in the Supra. Shotgun, while Brian in all his cool took on the asshole Ferrari dude. Brian. 

Dom opened his eyes. Imagining that he was tearing up the coast cocooned in the safety of a Toretto garage special wouldn’t help him now. Toretto wished it were something as simple as heterosexual panic or phobic rage that made him beat out of the house for the beach, but it wasn’t. 

Lompoc hadn’t turned him funny, but it had given him an understanding about rules and when they worked, when they didn’t. Survivors made adjustments, adapted. Sex was only one of the ways.

Knowing that in the abstract had paled next to seeing it in practice. In prison, men brutalized, comforted and bonded with sex. He’d seen relationships of every kind. Relationships he’d bet serious money very few of them had ever considered on the outside. His first year, size and well placed displays of attitude managed to keep him out of the brutalized category. But in the last year of his sentence, he’d dipped his toe in the comfort pool. 

The first year of lock-up had gone down better than expected. Probably because he’d expected the absolute worst. When he got through the first day and night without getting shanked, Dom figured he might make it. Reality caught up to him in his last year. With six months left on his sentence, Dom found himself fighting anxiety attacks and near overwhelming loneliness. The fear that he would get shanked or murdered, that something would happen to keep him from making his release date became ever present. During the day, among the other inmates, he was able to put on the show. But at night, the fear and loneliness were harder to contain.

Two consecutive nights, after lights out, he’d shimmied his boxers down with the hopes of relief followed by a quick drop into sleep. Both nights his penis remained flaccid in his hand. On the third night, he was unable to contain an agonized growl of frustration as again he remained unresponsive to his own hand. And he watched in a kind of a daze as his cell mate, serving time for several B and Es dropped from the top bunk to his knees beside Dom’s bed. 

Dom’s protests hadn’t been particularly forceful or even vocal. He’d watched impassively as the man swallowed him. And maybe it was true what they said about familiarity and contempt, because the new hot, moist unfamiliarity coaxed a response Dom had been unable to achieve in the previous two nights. He got his relief and slept. That arrangement got Dom through the last six months of his sentence. It wasn’t the sex, there had only been a handful of blowjobs, but he had honored the prison tit for tat. Having another back to actively watch distracted him from his own hell. "I’m in love with you." 

The exiled man had a keen understanding that when you were taken from your world, you had to adapt or die. He was in exile. And in this world, the fierce dark eyed girl who loved him had apparently, with his permission and cooperation been replaced with a cool blue eyed boy who loved him. 

Dom considered he’d picked a bad time to give up the self-con. After calling, Brian without getting any answer he’d called his sister. He didn’t want to categorize it as panic, but standing at the ocean’s edge listening to the rush of the waves, he couldn’t deny that he’d been worried. She’d asked him if he was calling about Letty and it occurred to him that he should have been. Letty would have wanted to touch base with someone, with family. Mia was the obvious choice. He’d brushed off news of Letty and gone straight to the heart of what he needed.

" I want you to go to the Cop’s house."

"What the hell for? That son of a bitch finally stopped coming around here."

"Go to his house, take Sari. She’s almost done with her EMT training right?"

"Dom, I don’t understand. Did you have someone do something? You want us to make sure it got done right? Make sure they didn’t go too far?"

Dom white-knuckled the receiver. 

"The only one who’s gonna fuck him up is me," he’d grumbled into the phone.

********************

Though he’d straightened some things out in his head it didn’t necessarily mean that Dom was ready to share. Stepping back into the kitchen, he was a little relieved to find Brian at the sink with his back to him. It looked like Brian was washing the dinner dishes.   
'I’ll just clean the grill," he said as he made a move to the patio doors.

"Dom, please talk to me." 

The familiar words fanned two opposing instincts in Toretto. The first was to keep moving. He could hear what had scared him in that last phone call. Brian was losing it and if Dom just kept walking. .. But the other instinct, the one he’d prevent himself from acting on last time, the instinct to offer comfort wouldn’t let his feet move. All that pain and uncertainty settled on Dom’s shoulders like an invisible weight. This time there were no miles to separate them. He might not be ready to say some things out loud, but there was no more pretending that he didn’t know just how invested the other man was. 

Dom turned to Brian to find the other man looking at him. The phone had offered protection from seeing what someone who sounded like Brian would look like. The last two days of verbal sparring had somehow prevented Dom from really looking at him or perhaps more accurately, Dom had simply managed not to see.

This man who came to him was a chameleon. He knew how to hide himself and now he was simply unwilling or unable. Dom guessed the latter was true. Brian had said it himself on that first afternoon. He’d lost his cool.

Dom had no choice but to really see Brian O’Conner, see the fading smudges under his eyes underscoring months worth of the fatigue he’d heard on the phone; the slightly unfocused eyes unable to hide either the fear of the moment or the deep truth of his earlier admission. Brian O’Conner was nearly completely undone before him. 

Moving closer, Dom took the liberty that Brian’s prior confession had given him. Reaching out, he ghosted a finger over the small bandage at his temple.

"You change this today?"

"Yeah, while you were on the beach." 

Dom stroked the tips of his fingers over the plains of Brian’s left cheek. Blue eyes fluttered closed as the attached body shivered. Dom wondered if from now on he would always measure time in terms of before what Brian confessed to him one night in Costa Rica and after.

His fingers lingered for just a moment more on Brian’s cheek before stepping away. 

"I’m a felon."

Laughter momentarily crowded out the bad things shadowing the blue eyes that locked on him. 

"Not a very good one. You repeatedly call the guy that was supposed to arrest you. You keep him from maybe bleeding out in his living room. And you give him a map to your ‘secret’ hideout." 

"So maybe neither one of us is very good at our most recent professions. But, I’m still a felon." 

"I don’t want to talk about that."

"You’re the only one that gets to tell the truth?" 

Brian held his hands up in mock surrender.

"I’m not living by the quarter mile anymore. At least I’m trying not to. People got hurt. Brian, people got dead and so I can’t do it. I can’t be that man. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t hear what you said. That I don’t get it." 

"I’m not asking you for anything."

"Yeah, you are blondie. I think you probably have been since I met you."

Blue eyes twinkled at him. "I can think of one thing I’d like from you."

*************************

Like a deja vu, Dom watched as Brian picked up the remote and turned on the satellite radio again. Something soft, easy floated into the air. Suddenly a little apprehensive, Dom couldn’t take his eyes off Brian as the man’s eyes fluttered closed and his hips moved sensuously to the music. 

"Dance with me."

"This doesn’t sound like the Tango to me," Dom solemnly intoned.

"No, not the tango.."

"Brian..." 

Brian ignored the warning growl. A mischievous smile touched his lips. 

Dom took his time covering the short distance to his dance partner. He stopped just before they were toe to toe again. 

What little distance he left between them, Brian obliterated as he stepped into Dom. He slipped one arm around Dom’s neck and his other around the hesitant man’s waist. Splaying his fingers across the back of Dom’s neck, Brian pressed their foreheads together.

"No pressure," Brian murmured softly. I just want to be close to you. I didn’t know the distance, god Dom the distance -" 

Dom didn’t say anything. He simply anchored his hands on slim hips and closed his eyes. As they moved, Brian pressed himself into Dom’s body. He shifted his hips slightly. The evidence of mutual arousal was unmistakable.

 "I don’t think that’s because the wind is blowing." Brian husked out. 

Big shoulders tensed and then - 

"No." 

Dom untangled himself from the other man’s embrace.

"No?" Confusion colored Brian’s features as Dom put more than an arm’s length between them.

"I -" and the hint of despair that had flickered in earlier in Dom’s eyes, now registered in his voice. Brian’s arms tingled violently with the need to wrap around Dom again, but he kept still and waited. 

"The others...Letty, Leon they wanted to bail on the last job. Said it didn’t feel right without Jesse. Vince is the perfect wingman so he was in, but the others. I destroyed their lives. I left my sister alone." He took another step away from Brian. 

"I, I don’t want this to come back to haunt you. You’re a cop. You’re ambitious. And somewhere down the line, someone’s gonna ask you again about what happened on your highjacking case. You gonna be able to hide that you got down with a felon, that you let a felon fuck you? You’ll wish that you had been stronger, you’ll wish that I hadn’t taken advantage. I don’t want you to regret me." 

There was so much in those words that Brian didn’t know where to begin. 

"You think you’re gonna be on top?" 

Dom couldn’t help but laugh and there might’ve been the slightest of affirmative nods.

"Look Toretto, I’m here because I want to be here. No one’s taking advantage of anyone."

"You’re here because your wheels are coming off. Does anyone know where you are? Did you tell anyone where you were going? You had no idea what you were walking into down here. You even bring your gun?

"I wanted to get into the country, Dom. You know low profile and all."

"Yeah well, a cop on his game would have figured a way around that angle. I fucked it up with Jesse. I wasn’t paying attention then. I am now."

Brian opened his mouth to challenge Dom, to point out the fundamental differences between him and Jesse. Then his mouth snapped shut. He was on the verge on ruining one of the more perfect moments of his life. Maybe he was more like the deceased mechanic than he was willing to admit.

"So what? You’re saying that I’m the first victim of the overhauled Dominic Toretto?

"Yeah, maybe something like that." 

And Brian paid attention in a way he hadn’t while undercover. It was a beautiful day. 

"Walk with me on the beach." 

That hadn’t been what Dom was expecting. He peered at Brian waiting for the rest, waiting for the challenge. 

 "Yeah, sure okay."

They walked, shoulders occasionally brushing until Dom stopped at about the same spot Brian had on his first day in Puntarenas. Reversing the positions of that first afternoon, Brian stepped behind Dom. Ignoring a small murmur of protest, Brian filled his arms with broad shouldered tension as he pressed his chest to Dom’s back. 

"I won’t ever regret you," he murmured against Dom’s ear. The big man tensed against him. Brian’s arms tightened. "I promise."

With the vastness of the Pacific in front of him and the solidness of Brian O’Conner behind him, hope flared in Dominic Toretto. Maybe getting away hadn’t been worse than getting caught. Maybe the movies were right to fade out with the outlaw on the beach after all.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we could fade to black or...


	6. The Open Ended Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter veers from the original after this sentence - "Yeah well, a cop on his game would have figured a way around that angle. I fucked it up with Jesse. I wasn’t paying attention then. I am now."
> 
> If you haven't read up until that part in the original, you might be lost in this part.

Brian opened his mouth to challenge Dom. Jesse. He wasn’t anything like Jesse. But before the objection could fully form, the panic reared it’s considerable head.

The panic of watching something else slip out of his reach to spiral downward. And there was nothing that he could say. Dom had lost everything. Brian hadn’t known Jesse or the rest of the team very long but he felt the loss, the tragedy of Jesse. And for Dom it had been years of surrogate fatherhood and friendship.

 

Brian had decided who he was going to be at an early age. The car and the cop thing came almost hand in hand. Enchantment with movie car chases sparked his initial interest in cars. And it was the cops, not the wheelmen that did it for him. Even when as a pre-teen, he realized that high speed chases were more likely to be tediously slow, rarely marked with any spectacular spins or jumps or crashes. And that had just made the other thing a non-issue. In school he was teased about not having a girl, but it was always good natured. Everyone knew he was always broke, because he spent all his money on his wreck of a car. And always broke for the sake of his car meant no money to spend on girls. Back then he could get his flirt on with the best of them, but could always smile and shrug his way out of closing the deal. He had to go to the salvage yard to pull parts, he had to fix his transmission, he had to buy a new muffler, he had to.... There were girls that he talked points, timing, paint jobs and 360s with, but they also understood it was all about the car. Some of them had brothers, but Brian never allowed those thoughts to take root. He wanted to be a kick ass driver and he wanted to be a cop.

He knew going in that he could be an out officer, but he’d also heard that those cops got stuck in vice and sex crimes. He didn’t want to do either. He hadn’t lied on his background investigation form but he also hadn’t gone out of his way to volunteer information. The P.D. invited him to their Academy. His reputation as a skilled driver and car guy followed him out of the Academy and into the department where it counted. That reputation got him where he wanted to be, where he was now.

 

After Dom kissed him, touched without hurting, Brian couldn’t think of anything but getting away. Sitting on the Costa Rican beach stunned, he’d tried and failed to resist running his fingers over his still tingling lips. Full realization dawned that while Brian O’Connor had been working an investigation, Brian Spilner had been following a separate agenda. The agenda of old, chat up the girl while looking over her shoulder at the boy. New guilt washed over him and the old guilt deepened. He too had ruined lives by not paying attention.

 

*************************

 

His fingers clenched in his hair to keep from making a move that he couldn’t back up, from making a move that he couldn’t survive. If he reached for Dom and the other man kept retreating...

Brian dropped his hands met Dom’s haunted eyes.

"So what," he summoned all the skill he possessed to get a grin on his face and levity in his voice, "you saying that you’re test driving the overhauled Dominic Toretto on me?"

"Yeah, maybe something like that."

And Brian paid attention in a way he hadn’t while undercover.

"Walk with me on the beach."

Startled, Dom stared at Brian, waiting for the rest, waiting for the challenge. Brian simply stared back until Dom shrugged.

"Yeah, sure okay."

 

*************************

 

Except for the occasional brushing together of their shoulders, the two men barely touched as they moved silently down the beach. About ten minutes into the walk, Brian lowered himself to the sand. Dom hesitated then followed him down. They sat close enough to touch, all either of them would have had to do was lean a little, but neither did. They simply sat in each others quiet company watching the ebb and flow of the tide until sunset.

The silence followed them from the sand back to the house. For dinner, Brian made a salad that they ate in silence while watching rugby. Later the cop found himself waking up on the couch, again. The light in the living room was low, the television off. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lower light. Directing his gaze toward the armchair where Dom had been sitting, he found the big man watching him intently.

"Hey, sorry." Brian croaked out as he righted himself. "I just -

Dom cut him off, "Yeah, I know you just haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately."

"Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cept that doesn’t seem to be a problem here. What about you?"

"What?"

"You sleepin’?"

Dom opened his mouth to lie, but they were past that now. He shifted in his seat.

"Not really, maybe a couple hours a night." And that had been usually only after he and Letty made love. In the nights she’d been gone even those couple hours of sleep were elusive.

Brian nodded with understanding. "Maybe -," his voice, tinged with uncertainty, trailed off.

"What?"

"Um, well maybe. You, there’s, okay. Okay, you and Letty, you’re use to sharing a bed, used to someone being beside you, sometimes after you’ve been with someone for a while it’s hard to sleep alone."

"Is that right Dr. O’Conner?"

"I -, I if you want I could lie down with you.."

"I already told you -"

"No, yeah no I know. I just -. If there was someone lying beside you, it might be, if the bed seemed less -"

"Stop, I get it," Dom growled.

With only the sounds of their breathing in the room, they sat for several more minutes without making eye contact, then Dom stood.

"Get the light on the way up, O’Conner, " he muttered gruffly as he stalked past the couch.

*************************

 

By the time Brian got to his bedroom, Dom had already stripped down to his boxer briefs. He lay in a semi-sprawl on top of the comforter, with one arm cocked behind his head. His other hand rested just at the waistband of his underwear and his knee was slightly cocked, eyes closed. Though Brian knew from prior experience the pose didn’t mean Dom was asleep, he still took care to be quiet.

In retrospect it made perfect sense that Dom would not want to sleep in the same bed he’d shared with his girlfriend. After turning off the lights and checking the alarm, Brian had knocked softly on the master bedroom door and when he got no answer he’d pushed the door open to find a darkened empty room.

And for a moment as he stood staring at the empty bed, his mind had gone beyond blank. Beyond the panic. Almost numb. And then his sense had returned.

Standing in the doorway of the bedroom designated as his, he took the liberty Dom’s choice gave him to simply stare, to appreciate the reality of Dom in bed waiting for him. To appreciate the beauty of the sculpted body in repose, illuminated in the soft light of the night stand lamp. And though it was only to sleep, Brian felt as though he’d been given a precious gift. Moving quietly, he stepped into the room and stripped down to his t-shirt and boxer briefs. He slid into bed beside Dom. And as he had only a couple days before, he reached out to let his fingers ghost over Dom’s heart. They hovered and then touched the warm skin very lightly. Beneath the soft touch, the other man’s heartbeat accelerated.

"It’s okay Dominic. It’s okay to sleep," he assured quietly, firmly.

**************************

 

The extreme warmth of the sun streaming into the bedroom prodded Brian out of a sound sleep. He woke to find his hand still covering Dom’s heart. In the course of the night, Dom’s hand had moved up from his waistband to just below Brian’s hand. Only a hairs breadth separated them. Peering at the sleep slackened face next to him, Brian couldn’t help but smile as he watched a thin line of spittle trail from Dom’s mouth to the pillow. It must be love he thought, because all he wanted to do in that moment was kiss his bed partner. Taking care not to jostle the other man, Brian slipped out of the bed and left the room.

 

*********************

"What the hell are you doing?" Brian looked up from the sizzling skillet to find Dom scowling at him."

"What does it look like I’m doing?"

"It smells like you’re burning pancakes." That sleep roughened voice fluttered Brian’s stomach. He tightened his grip on the spatula to keep from climbing Dom like a tree.

"Um, okay maybe the first couple, but it’s all coming back to me."

"Why are you making pancakes?"

"It’s time for breakfast."

"It’s five o’clock."

"Yeah, but you just got up right? And the fish, it was great but it was a long time ago." The rumpled racer ran his hand over his face and across his scalp.

"Yeah. Thanks man."

"Yeah."

"Can I do something?"

"Plates and forks?" Dom moved to get them.

"How long you been up?"

Brian answered without turning away from the crackling grease. "Maybe half and hour or so. Not long."

With his back turned, he missed the flicker of resignation on Dom’s face.

 

*********************

 

Like the revelatory meal before, breakfast passed in virtual silence. Brian watched Dom closely as he shoveled food into his mouth. The silence was nice. Nice that they could still be comfortable enough for this the morning after. He couldn’t help the smile that flickered across his face just as Dom looked up at him.

"What? It’s good." The big man said sheepishly. "You can cook O’Conner."

"But can I ‘cue?"

"Well, since I’m never letting you touch the grill, we will never know." the other man grinned around a glass of milk.

A few more minutes skittered by with only the sounds of the satisfied eating filling the room. And then Brian cleared his throat.

"Today is the fifth day of my suspension."

Dom took his time chewing his mouthful. Took the time it afforded him to wait for his stomach to unclench.

"When are you leaving?"

"I have a ticket for tomorrow afternoon. I have to report the day after to see whether or not I’ll be reinstated."

"Will you be?"

"I don’t know. They wanted me to spend some time with a shrink. I said no."

"You alright?"

"Yeah, better than alright maybe."

There was nothing Dom could do to quell the sudden blush that warmed his cheeks. He started eating again.

"Your car’s in a garage in Silverlake."

A broad, pleased grin met that admission. "Thanks man."

After all the food was gone, they talked the way they had in the preceding phone calls. At least Brian did and instead of the familiar dead air from the other side of the conversation, there were the deep rich tones of Dom’s replies .

They talked modifications to the Supra. Dom was surprised that it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would to talk cars. At least not with Brian. It hadn’t hurt to hear Brian talk about cars in the calls he’d made to him. He supposed it made some kind of sense that it wasn’t hard to hold up his part of the conversation on that subject in person. He hadn’t been able to with Letty or Leon. Hadn’t wanted to.

They talked favorite breakfast foods, they talked television. "What the hell was that?" Brian asked about the German possibly French game show. Dom simply laughed as he cleared their dishes and said he thought that it was some kind of reality show. Their conversation took them through the cleaning of the breakfast

mess to a full tour of the house, to the cleaning of the pool. During the house tour, with only the slightest preceding hesitation Dom launched into a thoroughly detailed explanation of the security system. And Brian accepted this intimacy. He assessed as a cop, then made suggestions for improvement as a man who needed to keep what was important to him secure.

 

Their chatter carried them through laundry as Dom watched Brian dump what little he had all together in the machine. Just as Brian lifted the cup to pour in detergent, Dom reached inside the machine and took everything out.

"I can do my own laundry Toretto."

Dom just cocked an eyebrow as he separated the dark jeans from the lighter boxer briefs.

"I barely even have enough for a load."

Without a word, Dom left the room and came back with an armful of his own clothes which he joined with Brian’s.

"Okay, you win laundry guru." Brian stepped back to let Dom reload the machine.

While the laundry laundered, Brian helped Dom clean the pool. As they debated the merits of ocean versus pool swimming, Dom tried not to stare openly, appreciatively at the golden flex and ripple of Brian as he worked. He tried to ignore the loop in his head which spooled that what he saw was his for the taking.

They drifted into a late dinner of quiet conversation next to the newly clean pool. Brian talked about the Academy and his dinner companion asked interested questions and listened to the answers without condemnation or anger.

After dinner, they again found themselves on the beach. Brian smiled mischievously at Dom then turned and began to strip down.

Dom averted his eyes. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What’s it look like I’m doing," the blond tossed over his shoulder.

"Losing your mind."

"You should come in."

"Uh huh," Dom said as he flicked his eyes briefly over Brian who was in nothing but his navy blue boxer briefs.

"We had this talk already. I don’t swim where something might eat me."

Brian stared at the water, hesitated for the briefest of instances then picked up his jeans.

His shimmy back into them caught Dom’s eye. He’d meant to avert his eyes the way he had while they were cleaning the pool, the way he had when Brian first started undressing, but this time he didn’t. Couldn’t.

Brian glanced up from zipping his jeans and caught the other man staring. His shy, pleased smile disappeared as the shirt slipped over his head. And his eyes met Dom’s again once his head cleared the neckline.

Sable eyes still stared, the appreciation not quite completely concealed.

"I can swim in the ocean any time."

"Okay."

They sat on the sand listening to the water lap the shore. Watching the flickering lights of a cruise ship in the distance, Dom thought about Leon, hoped that he and his girl were getting along. Hoped that Leon’s time with his girl was as easy as the day he’d spent with Brian. A tiny smile touched his lips at that thought. The late day behind him had been like one long date. A good date, weirdly domestic, but still a date.

Dom acknowledged to himself that he didn’t have much to compare it with. He hadn’t actually been on that many date dates. The panties always seemed to drop without much effort on his part. Even Letty, despite her attitude, had been easy for him. He was her weakness and -.

His mind tried to crawl away from the rest of that thought, but the reality of the blond beside him wouldn’t let him. That wasn’t the man he was now. He had been Letty’s weakness and he had exploited it, exploited her. All of them. He shuddered involuntarily.

"You okay?" A fleeting touch on his arm. This time the weakness was mutual.

"Yeah, I’m okay."

"Maybe we should go in."

*********************

 

"I’m just gonna grab a quick shower. I’ve got sand where sand shouldn’t be," Dom tossed over his shoulder, before he quickly disappearedn the direction of a first floor bathroom.

Bracing his hands against the sides of his bathroom’s shower, Brian bowed his head as water, that was more cold than hot, sluiced down his back. He’d wavered at the bottom of the stairs for a few minutes hoping Dom would change his mind and come upstairs. Not that it would have made any difference, Brian realized before giving up and trudging up the stairs to his own bathroom. It wasn’t like they would have showered together. The rest of that thought was cut off at the knees before the arousal he’d fought against for most of the day blossomed into technicolor pictures in his head. Pictures that would overwhelm his resolve. He had failed so spectacularly at setting any of his own boundaries. He needed to make sure he didn’t overstep Dom’s. That was clear to him, but it was also their last night together for a while. He didn’t want it to end with them on separate floors of the house. The tension he felt spring up between them before Dom wandered off gave him every reason to believe that he wouldn’t see Dom until morning.

 

*********************

 

"Shit."

"Sorry."

"It’s okay. I, um." Brian tightened his grip on the knot he’d tied loosely into the towel around his waist. Suddenly he was fourteen again, trapped in the boys’ locker room with no safe place to look.

Bare chested, Dom sat at the foot of Brian’s bed. The Detective couldn’t keep his eyes from lingering on all of the dusky skin in front of him.

For most of the day behind them, Dom had been in a less than form fitting t-shirt and baggy board shorts. Since he’d spent the day trying to respect the other man’s boundaries, Brian hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on what he wasn’t allowed to touch.

 "Today was a good day." The comment drew Brian’s eyes up to look Dom in the eye. His skin flushed under the other man’s intense regard.

"Yeah, yeah it was." His grip tightened just a bit more.

"Thank you," Dom said softly.

"No, problem man."

"Can I uh, crash in here tonight?"

"Yeah sure, I’ll just uh, lemme."

Snagging a pair of his own underwear out of the duffle, Brian disappeared into the bathroom. Back pressed against the locked door, he tried to calm his trip-hammering heart and burgeoning re- arousal by flashing on some of the more gruesome crime scene pictures he’d seen in his career. When he re-emerged, Brian was almost overwhelmed with the deja vu. The big man was sprawled on his bed the same way he’d been the previous night.

There was a slight variation. Brian swallowed hard at the difference. This time, dark eyes tracked him as he walked toward the bed, watched intently as he slid onto the comforter.

"Hey."

Brian smiled shyly as he lay down beside Dom, mimicking his position.

"I might have missed it last night. Does this deal come with a bedtime story?"

"Uh, maybe." Brian couldn’t keep the grin out of his voice. "Once upon a time there was a bald guy who drove fast and uh -"

"Something tells me you suck at this."

"Yeah, but I uh -. Okay, yeah."

"Tell me," Dom hesitated. "Tell me anything."

"Okay."

And they talked about things they would have come to eventually if they had been men with more time.

 

*********************

 

Dom’s eyes darted past Brian for the third time. The cop’s stomach sank.  “Is that where -?”  
  
The bald head nodded slightly. And then Brian was up and striding across the lobby.  
He stopped just in front of what had diverted Dom’s attention so completely.   
  
They’d awakened that morning later than intended. Brian remembered falling asleep to the soft rasp of Dom’s voice describing the first car he rebuilt top to bottom. And then Brian woke. And it was deja vu. His hand was resting lightly over the other man’s heart. Though he wanted to linger, Brian quietly slipped out of bed and left to get himself together in one of the other bedrooms down the hall.   
  
As he dressed, his eyes took in the details of the room. They paused on a clock on the dresser. He’d gotten up an hour later than intended. His first thought was to wake Dom. He’d snatched up his bag and headed back to his room. But once in the doorway another thought came to him. He could just keep going. He could leave Dominic Toretto with this momentary peace. It would be cleaner.   
  
Stepping into the bedroom, his eyes never left the sleeping man. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the balls to leave without saying goodbye. Crouching next to the bed he shook the man awake.  
  
“Get up Dom, it’s late.”

It had been Dom’s idea to have breakfast at the hotel in town, complete with stupid disguises.  
  
*********************  
  
Brian stopped just in front of one of three traditionally constructed phone booths in the hotel lobby. The actual design of the booths was decidedly upscale, with mahogany doors, smoked privacy glass . When the calls first started coming, his caller i.d. displayed unknown. Brian figured a disposable cell phone was in play.   
There hadn’t been phones in the house. That hadn’t really registered with Brian until the tour. Then he hadn’t thought about it anymore until now.   
  
There was an insistent heat at his back. Brian lifted his fingers to the accordion door and pushed. And they were in the small space. Together.  
  
Without preamble, Dom pressed Brian against the back wall of the booth and held him there with the weight of his body. Lifting Brian’s hands over his head, Dom squeezed the golden wrists hard enough to communicate don’t move.  
  
Satisfied that the message was received, shaking hands snaked under the blond’s t-shirt and caressed the smooth, hot skin underneath. One big hand drifted downward and fumbled with the button of the pliant blond’s jeans. Then hesitated.  
  
“It’s okay. I promise I won’t regret this. I won’t regret you. I promise.”   
  
The button popped, the zipper slid down and the graceless hand found that there wasn’t enough room. With a low growl of frustration, Dom pressed his other hand into service and yanked Brian’s skintight jeans and underwear to mid-thigh.   
  
“Please,” Brian whispered again. Stroking blond arousal with one hand, Dom used his other hand to shove his own shorts to mid-thigh. Finally skin to skin, he shuddered and pressed a kiss against the nape of Brian’s neck.   
  
Low desperate moans bounced off the walls of the confined space.   
  
“I’m so close Dom. Don’t let me go.”

And then Brian’s body tensed, let go and his knees buckled. Dom tightened his arm around Brian’s waist.  
  
Hand covered in ejaculate, the big man whispered urgently, “Have you...? Are you...?”  
  
“It’s been a long time” Brian husked out.”  
  
That admission briefly cut through Dom’s fog of desire. Jealousy and new insecurity flared. And those feelings flipped his thoughts involuntarily to Letty. She had been a virgin. He hadn’t been, not for a long time. Their relationship had been marked by periods of his infidelity, especially after Lompoc.   
  
He wouldn’t be Brian’s first guy. As he coated himself with Brian’s release, as he clumsily prepared the body trembling beneath his hands, as he pushed inside and felt everything in Brian give way to him, Dom understood exactly how deeply he’d hurt Letty. Understood and felt a tendril of hate for himself on her behalf.   
  
There would not be anyone after Brian. And he hadn’t known that until this moment. Hadn’t known until he was nestled tightly in the body of the man who had freely placed it in his inexperienced hands. A moment of real self-knowledge, the moment that he fell completely apart.  
  
“Brian,” he moaned raggedly before filling his lover with all that he still couldn’t say. And then he just held on.   
  
  
**************************  
  
The phone rang almost as soon as the Detective crossed the threshold of his apartment. He dropped his bag just inside the door and fumbled the cell out of his pocket.  
  
The display read unknown.  
  
“Hey,” he said softly.  
  
Nothing at first. Then -  
  
“Hey, blondie,” came the softly growled reply. “You make it home okay?”  
  
“A little turbulence, but yeah. You haven’t been in that phone booth this whole time have you? The desk clerk’s probably gonna hand you a bill when you leave.”  
  
“It would be money well spent. Take care of yourself Brian O’Conner.”   
  
“Don’t -“  
  
The dial tone buzzed in Brian’s ear.  
  
For a long time after, Dominic Toretto continued to sit in the hotel phone booth trying not to think about the man he loved.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could be the end, but yep there's another version of the end.


	7. The 'Ugly' Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of the three endings this is the one closest to how I thought it might go down. From the original ending, this ending begins after Dom steps out of the embrace.
> 
> There may be elements of dub-con.
> 
> If you haven't read the original ending it might not make sense.

 

Dom untangled himself from the other man’s embrace. "So, what," he summoned all the skill he possessed to get a grin on his face and levity in his voice, "you saying that you’re _test driving_ the overhauled Dominic Toretto on me?"

"It’s not a fuckin’ joke O’Conner." 

The cop held up his hands in supplication. "I know that _Toretto,_ I’m just -," _scared_ was the word that skittered through his mind, but he managed not to say it out loud. 

"Walk with me on the beach." Surprised, Dom stared at Brian waiting for the rest of the outburst. Brian stared back trying not to twitch or beg. 

"What the hell is it with you and the beach?"

They walked, shoulders occasionally brushing together, until Dom stopped at about the same spot Brian had on his first day in Puntarenas. Reversing the positions of that first night, Brian stepped behind Dom.

"O’Conner." Dom warned again. Ignoring the protest, Brian filled his arms with broad shouldered tension as he pressed his chest to Dom’s back. "Relax, Toretto."

_ What the hell is it with you and the beach? _

A grin split his face as Dom’s question echoed in his head. It wasn’t beaches, Brian thought. It was _this_ beach, with _this_ man. Pressing his forehead against the back of Dom’s head, he inhaled deeply of the co-mingled scents. This beach and Dominic Toretto. Losing himself, Brian’s hands roamed across Dom’s torso. 

 

On this beach, after the sobering realization that there had been two agendas working, Brian spent that night taking apart his assignment. Looking for the moment or moments when he should have known. Looking for markers to tell him how he’d managed to get so far down a road where he’d needed Dominic Toretto to touch him.  The early weeks in the Toretto store had been subtle, almost benign, but the day at the garage yard hadn’t been. The moment blazed technicolor in his head.

 

The five guys, no Letty or Mia in sight, had all been sitting around on top of a hulled out car shooting the shit. It was hot as hell that day and they’d stripped down to skins. He’d been momentarily poleaxed at the sight of a bare-chested Dom. 

 

The instincts that had kept him safe, kept him unexposed in high school prickled. That prickling had saved him from acting on the sudden dizzying desire to stalk over to Dom, lean into him, stroke his hands and flick his tongue over the sun-kissed skin. He’d licked his own lips instead, which prompted Jesse to hand him a beer. He’d refocused all of his attention on the cold liquid as it slid down his throat. A few days later, he’d slept with Mia. 

 

But now it was just the two of them. The suppressed/repressed desire of that remembered moment rose up in Brian, overwhelming him. The instinctual preservation long laid to waste. 

 

"Dom," he husked out as he pressed an open mouthed kiss against the nape of Dom’s neck. The roaming of his hands became more deliberate, focused. Nipples pebbled beneath his caress and...

And then Dom turned, fast. The back of Brian’s head hit the sand hard enough to bounce and leave him woozy. As he tried to shake the sudden cobwebs clear, Dom’s full weight dropped on him.

 

Still dazed, Brian watched passively as Dom’s hands quickly unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and yanked them and his boxers down with both hands. Exposed to the ocean air, Brian shivered, but remained transfixed as the big man rolled slightly off him to make quick work of his own shorts.

With the restricting clothes out of the way, Dom rolled back on top of Brian, simultaneously pressing his wrists above his head and into the sand. 

"Is this what you want?" Dom growled as he ground their pelvises together. The kiss at the pool had left them both slightly turned on and despite the slight throb in his head, Dom’s question did the rest of the job for Brian. Dom shifted and ground hard against him again.

 

"Is this what you want?" Toretto rasped. His dark eyes pierced the slightly unfocused eyes under him. As if compelled by the low voice above him, Brian tried to spread his legs more in answer, but his jeans and underwear hadn’t been pulled down far enough to give him that freedom. He parted his lips to speak, but before the words came, Dom suddenly let go of his wrists and flipped him. As quickly as Brian had found himself on his back, he was now just as quickly on his stomach trying to avoid a mouth full of sand and abrasions to his manhood. As the dark voice asked its question again, powerful hands, with a bruising grip, fastened to Brian’s hips and pulled him up.

 

The preparation, punctuated by Brian’s stuttered breathing and moaning and Dom’s own harsh breaths, was fast, just shy of brutal. With little else to ease the way but their combined pre-ejaculate and saliva, Dom pushed his way into the body in front of him. He held still until the change in Brian’s breathing and the lessening of the tightness around Dom’s cock signaled Brian’s final adjustment to the intrusion.

 

"Dom," Brian moaned. The grip on his hips tightened as Dom pulled out just a little before thrusting in again. A few more tentative strokes then Dom set up a punishing rhythm that left Brian hanging on by the skin of his teeth. His mind was blank save for the one word rolling around and through _. Dom, Dom, Dom_. The same word that couldn’t help, but fall from his lips in a near helpless chant. 

 

When it was over, Dom slipped out of Brian, who unsteady on his knees, canted sideways onto his bare hip into the sand. Behind him Dom shifted to his feet, tucked himself in as he pulled up his underwear and shorts. Flicking a brief opaque glance over Brian’s still exposed ass, Dom stepped around him and walked towards the house. Still unsteady, Brian didn’t look up as he pushed a sand crusted hand through his hair and tried to figure out the answer to Dom’s question. 

 

Grateful for the high fence between Dom’s house and his neighbors, O’Conner managed to shove himself to his feet and get himself together enough to trudge in the direction of the house. 

 

As he stepped into the main part of the house, he heard the shower just off the laundry room running. Walking carefully upstairs to the room that had been designated as his, Brian stripped down and maneuvered himself into his own shower. He let the scald of the water narrow the thoughts in his mind. He concentrated on how good the water felt against the soreness of his body without letting his mind rest on the reasons for the unexpected pain. 

 ************************

Wrapped in the fluffy hotel quality robe he found on the back of the bathroom door, Brian stepped into the bedroom and was startled to find Dom in an identical robe sitting on the edge of his bed. Sable eyes stared at Brian and for a moment, the cop was transported back to the side of the highway, with accusing, angry eyes staring at him over Vince’s battered body. This time, the battered body seemed to be his. 

"You okay?" Toretto asked gruffly

"Yeah."

O’Conner was surprised to find his own voice so soft. And that he was shaking. He’d been apprehensive when he confessed to his feelings, but he’d had a sense of control, a sense of rightness. Now he felt...he’d provoked Dom into doing something Dom hadn’t wanted to do, something he hadn’t wanted Dom to do. 

"I’m so -"

"Let me see."

"What?"

"I want to see that you’re not hurt." Brian stared at Dom, not certain what the other man meant. "Take off the robe." The power in the voice again compelled Brian to slip his finger under the loosely tied sash and undo it. With that done, he shrugged the robe off his shoulders to pool at his feet. His eyes never left Dom’s so he saw the wince before shuttered eyes traveled down his body. Following the gaze, Brian looked down to see the deep, purpling finger size bruises on his hips. They hadn’t looked quite that bad in the shower. "Turn around."

 

A rough hand trailed across his ass, then he was parted and a flat wet heat pressed into him, soothed the abused area, then darted away. A guttural moan from behind and the wet pressure returned, swirled. Brian’s knees buckled. A solid arm encircled his waist, guided and lowered him face down on his bed. Dom’s tongue never lost contact. 

 

In the window between his acceptance to the Police Academy and the day they had to report, Brian was invited, by other recruits he’d met during the selection process, to blow off some steam in Vegas. A last civilian fling.

Begging off with the excuse that he had some loose ends to tie up, Brian put in motion his own very personal plan for blowing off steam. He suspected his officer trainee friends wouldn’t be interested. Even if they had been, Brian had been thinking of his time away for awhile. It was always intended to be solo. Las Vegas was too obvious, San Diego too close. So Brian had chosen Phoenix for his lost weekend. 

 

The first bar was full of ‘safe’ guys. Professionals, suits. Well appointed. He’d worn his good suit jacket and dress pants. The same one he’d worn for his police candidate interview. He allowed himself to get picked up by a guy who was an office manager for a software company. Brian told him he owned a partnership in a garage in San Diego. He read the guy as harmless and invited him back to his room at the Quality Inn. The sex had been nice. Kissing, hand jobs, blow jobs and thanks for the memories. It was the appetizer that Brian wanted to get his feet wet. 

 

The second bar on the second night was the polar opposite. Dark, off the beaten path. Both the clientele and the atmosphere were more raucous. Baseball cap jammed low on his head, in a one size too small t-shirt and snug jeans, he’d only been holding up a back wall for about fifteen minutes before he found himself in a corner sipping a beer bought for him by a new friend. His new friend had nimble fingers and a sure hand that ended up inside his jeans. Turned out his new friend also had a boyfriend who wasn’t exactly the jealous type. Most of the rest of that night had been spent in a badly lit booth where three pairs of hands and mouths were in constant motion. No names were ever exchanged.

 

The last bar Brian had actually chosen first when he was planning his weekend. It was near Sky Harbor International. He found a seat that let him watch the patrons, predominantly travelers, and then lit a cigarette. He had more than halfway quit, but he needed something in his hand. It mostly burned to nothing, then he lit another one. 

The third hookup was with a tourist from Norway or Denmark, maybe Sweden. Brian only cared that by the next day his newest of new friends would be out of the country. His English was slight and Brian only had some conversational Spanish under his belt, but they managed with pantomime to understand each other. A couple of drinks later and repetition of the phrase, "you come," which _wasn’t_ intended as a double entendre, Brian went back to the man’s room. 

He got his cherry fully popped in an airport motel. It was what he’d wanted at the time. Slipping out of the room well before dawn, he was on the ten freeway back to Los Angeles by the time the sun came up. And although it would be a few years before Las Vegas made a similar slogan popular, Brian had every intention of letting what happened in Phoenix stay in Phoenix. Until now.

With Dom’s tongue working him like the world was ending and the tightening almost painful grip on his ass, he couldn’t help but flash on that weekend. 

The answer to the question Dom asked on the beach might be in there somewhere. In the hotel rooms and bars in Phoenix he’d wanted it, needed it but underneath the no strings attached satiation, there was a thin thread of awareness that driving five hours out of state to give himself to strangers wasn’t just precautionary, it was a little twisted. It had been what he needed, but not like that, not like this.

There was the answer to Dom’s question. He wanted it, but not like this. 

And he wanted to open his mouth to tell Dom to stop but his body continued to betray him as he opened his mouth on a moan. There was an answering groan as the grip on his ass tightened. Clenching one hand in the sheet as his other slipped into the small space between his arousal and the bed, he gave in. Again. 

 

                                                                                                                    ******************* 

 

Still slightly shower damp, Brian faltered in the kitchen doorway. Dom was making breakfast. Unless, Letty or Leon was about to make a sudden appearance, the table was set for the both of them. And this could have been the perfect morning after two intense and slightly bewildering sexual encounters, but Brian thought, as he watched Dom pour pancake batter into a hissing skillet, that like the marriage that ended in a bloodbath, their train had also somehow jumped the track. 

Brian felt further away from the other man than he had at any point since he’d met him.  

"Sit down. It’ll be ready in a minute." Dom said without looking at him.

"Alright." 

Brian made his way to one of the chairs at the table and sat down carefully. 

Dom placed a plate in front of Brian a few minutes later and then joined him at the table with a plate of his own.

They ate mostly in silence, the scrape of cutlery on plates the primary sound in the room. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Dom about his decision, but he couldn’t push the words past his lips.

Afterward, when the meal was done, he honored the tradition of the cook not having to do the dishes and started clearing the table. 

Brian had only washed a couple of dishes when a large hand appeared at the edge of the sink just below his elbow. The hand’s mate began to work the button of his jeans. His response to Dom’s touch was as instantaneous, as betraying. As he rinsed the glass he’d just washed, Brian berated himself for not telling Dom what he should have. He should have said something while they were eating. Because maybe -

But his body continued it’s traitorous response as the busy hand worked his jeans down and then left his body just long enough for Dom to do the same with his own pants.

And then Brian felt something slick between his cheeks. The preparation this time was no less hurried than the first time, but less brutal. Or Brian thought it’s exactly the same as last time I’m just more -

The thought trailed into nothing as the hand that began at the edge of the sink moved to wrap around his neck and his body was penetrated. The cop’s mind drifted. 

Afterwards, Brian got only a few yards from the house before stripping to the skin and diving into the ocean. He swam and swam letting the water wash away the evidence of his failure. 

Then he walked. Like he had that night after they kissed for the first time. He’d walked the beach and thought and _thought_. This time he walked the beach and tried not to think, but he was unsuccessful. The decision he’d come to in the shower, the one he hadn’t been able to speak before breakfast could no longer go unspoken or unacted upon. It was time for him to leave. There had been a moment when he considered not going back to Los Angeles, but now that was all he could think about.  


_*********************_  
  
Hatred.  Toretto couldn’t turn away from it, but the alcohol smoothed the revelation out just enough. On the beach, with Brian’s slightly callused hands mapping his body, there had been the flare of desire, but there had also been hatred. In that moment, he hated Brian O’Connor for showing him a glimpse of something he couldn’t really have. He’d asked Brian not to touch him like that again, but Brian hadn’t listened. 

Afterward, as he showered and came back to himself a little, he was horrified. As much as he wanted to he couldn’t seem to leave that kind of anger behind him. 

Drinking had mellowed Dom just enough so that he only tightened the grip on his bottle instead of climbing over the couch and wrapping his hands around Brian O’Conner’s neck. This anger felt so much closer to the surface, so close to how it was right before Linder. Right before all he could see was red.

Dom knew that he wasn’t entirely gone again, not yet. He was still aware of his surroundings. Still aware of the German reality show that had been on the tv for the last half an hour. But he was so close. There would be no one to pull him off of Brian if things continued to slip. So he didn’t look at the other man and didn’t acknowledge what he had just been told. 

_********************_

  
They stepped into the lobby of the hotel and Dom’s eyes instantly strayed to the line of phone booths against the wall. He’d never come to the hotel for any other reason than to make the calls. On reflex, he took a step in that direction. Before he could get himself together, Brian stepped past him and kept walking towards the booths.

When Dom called Brian, he’d always tried to mix up which phone he used, but most of the time he’d found himself in the last booth. Brian stopped at the first one. Dom watched him lift his hand hesitantly, reverently. And the mantra that had been mercifully quiet on the walk to the hotel started up again.  _Brian is leaving me._   


The hand already on the mahogany door made no move to actually open it, so Dom reached over Brian’s shoulder and applied the necessary pressure for it to accordion. Brian is leaving me. Dom could feel the red tide coming as he pushed Brian far enough into the booth for him to close the door behind. 

Dom remembered feeling a little cramped sometimes, but listening to Brian had made the walls a minor distraction. With the other man right in front of him, the confines slipped out of existence. He grabbed Brian’s arm and pressed his wrist against the wall above his head. The grip tightened enough to prevent movement, enough to bruise, but the encroaching red swirl pulled that thought under. His other hand scrabbled against the uncooperative button of the blond’s jeans.

 

The anger was gaining, but it seemed to have less of a hold in the place where he’d begun the next chapter of the thing between him and the cop. Brian. Between him and Brian. And the anger hadn’t taken him so far away that he couldn’t tell the difference between a shiver of anticipation and the bone deep shaking underneath his hands. Beating back the tide, Dom stilled his fingers against the cool metal button. He listened as Brian took in a shuddering breath. Loosening the pressure on the pinned wrist, dark eyes tracked as the still shaking man turned his wrist, placing his hand palm up. 

 

Without hesitation, Dom slipped his hand into Brian’s. Sable eyes watched as the blond twined his fingers with Dom’s and squeezed. "Not like this."

The red tide washed out.  "Brian." Dom dry sobbed as his other hand slipped underneath Brian’s t-shirt and pressed flat against trembling flesh. "Brian," he repeated as he dropped his lips to the bite mark underneath the shirt, a souvenir of the sex in the kitchen. He pressed a gentle lingering kiss to the wound he couldn’t see. And tried not to think about the faint bruises around Brian’s neck.  Face buried in blond hair, Dom held onto Brian until his shaking stopped. Until Brian turned in his arms to trace his fingers over the planes of Dom’s face. And Dom leaned in just enough to brush his lips gently over Brian’s temple. 

The word he could not find for his girlfriend, he found for the man in front of him.

"Stay."

Arms encircled Dom and held on tight.

"I can’t get you out of this if I’m here."

A rich dark laugh, tinged with despair vibrated off the walls of the small room. 

"Someone’s Central American getaway has been good for them. ‘Cause if you think you can figure a way out of this you must have gotten your cool back. Brian O’Conner got his cool back."

Toretto reluctantly loosened his embrace as he felt O’Connor trying to pull away from him. He watched as Brian’s hand reached up in the small space between them. It fluttered over his heart the way it had that first day when he’d pretended to be asleep, kept still so as not to give anything away. The fingers pressed just hard enough for Dom to really feel them. And there was no point in remaining still. He’d already given everything away. He drew Brian back into a tight embrace.

The words murmured against his ear were strong, determined. "I’m in love with you. I love you. I’ll figure something out."

"Okay, Detective O’Conner." 

"I have to go."

"Yeah." Dom pulled himself away from Brian and sat on the bench, allowing enough room for the other man to slide out of the booth.

"Call me?"

"Yeah," Dom nodded fast as he stared at the phone. He couldn’t watch Brian walk away from him. 

                                                                                           *******************  
  
The phone rang almost as soon as the Detective crossed his threshold. Dropping his bag just inside the door, he fished the phone out of his pocket.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hello, O’Conner."

"Shit," Brian expelled. "Can’t you give a guy the chance to even get in his house?" 

"Stop bitchin’ and tell me something to make me smile."

"I’m in."

"Good work. Do I want to know how you pulled it off?"

"I’m hanging up now." 

"Debriefing at 10 tomorrow morning. You know where." 

Brian managed, only just barely, not to slam his phone against the wall. 

In the gathering darkness of his living room, Detective Brian O’Conner stared at the wall and tried not to think about the man he loved.

Fin

 


End file.
